Address in connection to information in mass media about pressure on Dmitriy Dashkevich

Dmitriy Dashkevich (born 1981) is a leader of the Young Front youth movement, Evangelical believer, member of John the Baptist church (Pentecostal Union) in Minsk.

In November 2006 he was sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment "for organizing and involvement in a non-registered NGO". Amnesty International announced Dashkevich prisoner of conscience. 

On 18 December 2010 just before the presidential election in Belarus Dmitriy Dashkevich was arrested and falsely accused of hooliganism. He was sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment. Now he is serving the sentence. He has been transferred from Gorki (Mogilev oblast) to Glubokoe (Vitebsk oblast).

Several days ago information appeared about physical and moral pressure on Dmitriy by the prison administration and also information about a threat to his life. Another political prisoner, a former presidential nominee in 2010 election, Andrey Sannikov told his attorney on 27 September that he had met Dashkevich during the transfer from one prison to another. According to him, Dashkevich’s state is critical. "Employ all measures to save Dashkevich, otherwise he’ll die", Andrey Sannikov said.

We ask all the indifferent people to pray for the cease of  the pressure and the release of Dmitriy Dashkevich and other Belarusian political prisoners, and also we ask people to write to Belarus government officials (including addresses through Belarusian diplomatic offices in different countries) with the demand to stop Dmitriy Dashkevich’s persecution.

Attached is the address by John the Baptist believers (Dmitriy Dashkevich is a member of John the Baptist church).

Sentences Execution Department of Internal Affairs Ministry of the Republic of Belarus
Aranskaya str. 1
220006 Minsk BELARUS

General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Belarus
Internatsionalnaya str. 22
220050 Minsk BELARUS

Administration of the President of the Republic of Belarus
K. Marksa str. 38
220050 Minsk BELARUS

On 26 September 2011 information appeared in mass media (Dmitriy Dashkevich’s letter to his fiancée Nasta Palazhanka of 19 September 2011) about moral and physical pressure on him. In the letter he asks for a meeting with his attorney in connection to the critical situation resulting from pressure, persecution and torture by the Gorki prison administration. He wrote ‘The situation in Gorki did not change for the better. Vice versa. If I say that it changed for the worse I say nothing… those from there determined me to such dreadful things that I do not even hope to find the way out… In two days I’ve slept an hour and a half and have eaten half a meal.’

Dmitriy Dashkevich, arrested on 18 December 2010 and sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment on 24 March 2011 based on a faked-up evidence, is a Christian, member of John the Baptist church (Pentecostal Union) since 2006. In Gorki prison #9 Dmitriy Dashkevich was being held in a penal ward, did not have warm clothes and the Bible, so he had to start a protest hunger-strike. He told his attorney about it on 13 September 2011.

In the Holy Scriptures, the Bible, God repeatedly points out the value of human life and human dignity. That is why God is not indifferent to what is being done to inmates:

"To crush under one’s feet all the prisoners of the earth, to turn aside justice due a man before the face of the Most High, or subvert a man in his cause - the Lord does not approve" (Lamentations 3, 34-36)

"That no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such" (1 Thess. 5, 9)

Also, the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus claims that state provides for the inviolability and dignity of a person:

"No one should undergo torture, cruel, inhumane or debasing treatment or punishment" (article 25).

In view of all this information we ask you to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the facts of torture in Gorki prison #9 and in other places where Dmitriy Dashkevich was held while being transferred from one prison to another.

We demand that moral and physical pressure on Dmitriy Dashkevich be stopped, perpetrating officials be found and punished and measures be taken to prevent such practices in future.

On behalf of members of John the Baptist church Pastor Anthony Bokun.

27 September 2011