Valery Shchukin can die behind the bars

• 30.03.2012, 15:24

70-year-old human rights activist, Valery Shchukin, who stands trial in Vorsha today, feels really bad.

According to human rights activists who had been allowed to attend the trial, Valery is very weak; he speaks slowly, with long pauses, Nash Dom reports.

An activist of Nash Dom civil campaign Mikalai Pyatrushenka met with the deputy head of the city police department fro ideology work Andrei Pravalinski. The policeman called the doctor of the remand prison and asked him to describe Shchukin’s state of health. The physician noted that the state of health was unsatisfactory, and imparted apprehensions that Shchukin may die behind the bars, as he does not exclude this is possible himself.

Yesterday Mikalai Pyatrushenka filed a written demand to Vorsha police to provide Valery Shchukin with all the necessary things, he informed that Shchukin had been recently under treatment in Minsk military hospital. Valery Shchukin has stomach problems: he must follow a strict diet. However, today Pyatrushenka found out that his request has not been considered yet. Thus, policemen have not paid due attention to Valery Shchukin’s state of health and possible aftermaths of his staying in the remand prison for a night.

We remind that Valery Shchukin was one of the group of human rights activists and journalists who arrived to Vorsha in order to support the detained Syarhei Kalyakin, Anatol Lyabedzka and Alyaksandr Atroshchankau at court. Policemen, in the ranks of major and lieutenants, lined up along the stairs and were not allowing anyone including journalists entering the second floor where the session of the court was held. Valery Shchukin tried to break through to the session of the court, and when he was stopped, he blocked the door to the second floor with his body, to prevent it from being closed. After a while the human rights activist was detained.