Aleksandr Otroshchenkov: “I’m sure that Sannikov is being tortured”

The former political prisoner is sure that the presidential candidate, Andrei Sannikov, has been taken from Novopolotsk colony in order to subject him to torture.

“As we all know, in Belarus the distances are not sufficient for five days of transportation on the road. As a rule, most of the time prisoners being transferred are “bottled up” in central prisons. A central prison is the sort of place which it is better to avoid at all costs. Even a conventional colony is a completely closed institution, and it is extremely difficult to get any sort of information from there.

A central prison is completely isolated from the outside world; its officials are completely anonymous and virtually unrestricted by any limits to what they do. The conditions of detention in such institutions can be equated to torture: terrible overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, tuberculosis…

I have been told terrible things about Vitebsk central prison. Even ordinary prisoners there are severely beaten for the slightest offence, or in order to force them to admit their guilt. The amount and sophistication of the resources for applying pressure and abuse can amaze the sickest imagination. It is terrible to imagine what they can do with a person who will receive “special treatment”. I am afraid that these days it may be even harder for Sannikov than it was in the KGB jail,” said Aleksandr Otroshchenkov to the site charter97.org.