Kavalenka pled for mercy "to avoid playing shell game with torturer"
Syarhei Kavalenka's wife has explained why the political prisoner took such a decision.
According to Alena Kavalenka, representatives of the administration kept visiting him in the punishment cell for 8 days on end demanding to repent and write a letter where he had to admit that he had beaten members of special police troops and that the act of hoisting a white-red-white flag on the New Year Tree in Vitebsk in 2010 was a hooligan action instead of a political one. Kavalenka refused to do it. The head of the colony came to him eight days later and said that it was possible to write "a simple plea for mercy" and send it to the President.
“There are only 1.5 lines in it: I am asking you to release me. That's the whole plea", - said Alena Kavalenka. - Firstly, he did it for our son as he wants to be with his family. Our son keeps asking why hsi father is away. He is old enough to understand everything - his father's absence is very painful. He feels it and it is hard for him to endure his father's long absence. Secondly, he recalled Zyanon Paznyak's words from one of his articles: "you should not play the shell game with a torturer".
According to Alena Kavalenka, Syarhei has a lot of health problems and he feels it. The woman is hoping that the plea for mercy will give some results and that her husband will be released.
