Number of prisoners sentenced to death decreased by 15 times in Belarus

The documentary “Cause of death ----------” was presented in the gallery “Ǔ” in Minsk on June 29. It was created in the framework of the campaign “Human rights activists against the death penalty”.


Belarus is the only European country still practicing the capital punishment.


The film describes how Andrei Zhuk’s mother (condemned man) brought a parcel for her son to the detention centre in Valadarski Street in Minsk. However, the parcel was not accepted and the guard said: “Do not look for him, he has left for the place of the execution of his sentence”.


His mother visits fortune-tellers to find out where he is buried and looks for him among nameless graves in the city cemetery …


Svyatlana Zhuk: “I went to fortune-tellers after everything that had happened… One fortune-teller told me that it was a plain, near the forest edge, there were bushes… He was buried like a dog”.

 

Their bodies are not given to relatives, the burial places remain secret and there is a dash in their death certificates.


Head of the Supreme Council of the 12th convocation Mechyslau Hryb also attended the presentation. Notorious Vitsebsk “maniac” Henadz Mihasevich was detained under his direction.

You can join the petition against the death penalty on the website http://petition.spring96.org.