Russia: help for prisoners held in Belarusian prison

After the peaceful protests against falsification of the presidential elections in Belarus more than 200 persons have been detained in Belarusian prisons and are receiving sentences currently.

Among the detainees are foreigners from Poland, Canada, Russia and other countries. On March 27th in Minsk the Russian citizens Eduard Glezin, Oleg Kozlovski and Aleksandr Podrabinek have been sentenced to a 15 days detention for their support of the Belarusian opposition.

Three other Russian citizens ? among them the journalist Pawel Sheremet have been freed the days before. Russian and international NGOs are appealing to their ambassies to protest against the detentions.

Internet Newspaper Maidan (www.maidanua.org) writes: “In Minsk today, as over the last many days, there are people standing and waiting to hand parcels to those held in the temporary detention unit, special detention unit and remand unit. Human rights activists say that every day parcels are being brought for the political prisoners, and that there are quite a lot of people who have brought food and warm things for people they don?t even know. They saw the lists of names of those detained on the Internet and having, fortunately, not found their relatives and friends on the lists, decided to simply help their fellow citizens. And not only them: the people of Minsk are also bringing parcels to the Ukrainians, Poles, Russians and the Canadian journalist, Alan Callison, who has been sentenced to 15 days imprisonment.”