Rights groups demand information about jailed regime critic Kaleśnikava

June 12, BPN. Belarusian authorities should stop the ill-treatment of jailed opposition activist Maryja Kaleśnikava and other political prisoners, says a joint statement of 24 international and Belarusian human rights groups.

“Kaleśnikava is being held in solitary confinement and is not receiving adequate medical care despite serious health problems,” reads the statement published by Human Rights Watch.

She has been denied contact with her family and lawyer for almost four months, human rights defenders said.

“Isolation and ill-treatment of political prisoners is a widespread repressive tactic in Belarus,” they stressed citing cases of prominent jailed regime critics being held incommunicado, among them lawyer Maksim Znak, bloggers Ihar Łosik and Siarhiej Cichanoŭski, former presidential hopeful Viktar Babaryka and opposition politician Mikałaj Statkievič.

Rights groups urged Belarusian authorities to “end their politically motivated prosecutions and release all those imprisoned solely for exercising their fundamental freedoms.”

Amnesty International, Article 19, the Belarusian Association of Journalists, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, International Federation for Human Rights, and the World Organization Against Torture signed the statement among others.

In 2020, Kaleśnikava was Babaryka’s campaign manager. After his arrest, she joined forces with Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja and Vieranika Capkała, wives of other presidential contenders.

Police arrested her in September 2020 and tried to force her to leave Belarus, but she refused. One year later, a judge sentenced her to 11 years in prison on charges of conspiracy to seize power. Last November, she had an emergency surgery for peritonitis.

There has been no news about her for over three months.

In late May, she was still having health problems in a penal colony in Homiel and needed assistance when walking, MAYDAY.TEAM reported.