"22 people in one 16-18m² prison cell"
Belarusian prisons are not overpopulated - every prisoner has access to his 2 square metres of living space.
8 thousand more prisoners can be easily put in Belarusian prisons now. There are already 24 thousand convicts there and our prisons are meant for 32.5 thousand people, head of the Supreme Court Valyantsin Sukala reported the life-asserting numbers to Soviet Byelorussia.
Head of the human right structure "Platform Innovation" Andrei Bandarenka partially agrees with the country's chief judge.
Andrei Bandarenka : “It is not clear: do they mean the colonies only or prisons, detention centres and so on? If they only mean colonies - it is true - people do not have to take turns to sleep there. But prisoners of Valadarski Street prison have to do it."
For instance, there are only 4 prisoners per 9 million people living in Sweden. Belarus has a similar number of citizens and 24 thousand people are in prison.
Leader of the band "Naked Nun" Fyodar Zhyvaleuski was released from Orsha colony in the middle of 2011. According to Sukala, "the living conditions" were improved in the colony in that period. But the musician did not feel it.
Fyodar Zhyvaleuski: “The colony was overpopulated! 22 people could live in a 16-18 m² prison cell at a time."
Prisoners avoid complaining to the colony administration or higher institutions. It may get worse.
Fyodar Zhyvaleuski: “If prisoners ask for more space or other improvements, the situation may become even worse. That is why they have to endure it somehow."
Ex-political prisoner Syarhei Kavalenka is not complaining about overpopulation either. But he did not see any vacant cells when he was released in September 2012.
Syarhei Kavalenka: “Mahilyou colony #19 has as many prisoners as it could accept. but I do not remember any vacant prison cells there. There were bunk beds and sometimes people slept in the third tier."
According to the existing norm, prisoners should be provided with two square meters of living space. But Sukala did not mention the prison capacity, he meant the number of bunks, Andrei Bandarenka explained. If the third tier is free, it allows him to claim that there is no overpopulation.
The colonies have refused to discuss the living conditions and the number of bunks. The reply that Euroradio received from Babruisk colony was brief: "Everything is fine!"
It is impossible to check whether the information presented by the head of the Supreme Court and colony administrations is true. Human rights defenders an civil activists are not allowed to visit prisons, Andrei Bandarenka said.
Photo by: http://offline.by
