Pavel Levinov's 15-day administrative arrest ended. The human rights activist was released from the temporary detention center in Viciebsk.
On April 17, Judge Inna Grabovskaya accused a member of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee of participating in unauthorized civil actions on March 25 and 26 and punished him with arrest. However, the human rights defender was imprisoned only on the last day of May. Before his isolation Pavel Levinov stated that he would take advantage of this opportunity and monitor the conditions of detention in the Viciebsk isolator. The human rights activist kept his word and, on the way out, shared his observations and conclusions with journalists and like-minded people.
As he noted, the conditions of detention in comparison with 2008, when he was there last time, have improved. But only in the sense that it was possible, thanks to human rights activists, to fix legislatively the receipt of product transfers and the opportunity to have a wrist watch in the cell.
But the most joyful thing is support from the will. For two weeks in IVS he received several dozen letters from friends and strangers to him from Belarus and from abroad.
15 days of free time were not wasted: during this time he studied several cases of the UN Human Rights Committee, read the story of Mikhas Lynkov "Mikolka-locomotive" and the story of František Alekhnovich "In the clutches of the GPU".
"It would seem, why reread the children's story about the events of the beginning of the last century from the school curriculum? The human rights activist asks, and he himself answers it. – A work about how the Belarusian people fought against the pans, the tsar and the gendarmes. It has been exactly one hundred years, but, surprisingly, with whom we fought, so we fight. And take Alehnovich: there about the Solovki camps: nothing has changed – the same conditions of detention, the same meager food. Life goes on, but we stand still, we are numb. We are in some former dimension. "
Answering the question of one of the journalists, Pavel Levinov stated: "These imprints are tempered. If the authorities think that somehow it will force us to abandon our beliefs – and we do not do anything illegal – then it is mistaken. In general, after my last thoughts, I came to the conviction that the IVS is an anachronism. It does not do any good, but only harm to the state and its citizens. He does not correct, but only embitter people. There are such persons who are in its walls more than at liberty. In this case, the very meaning of this institution is lost: went out – and again here. The first step that I will make will be an application for the transfer of this institution to the civil ministry department: the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Labor or some other, but not the Ministry of Internal Affairs. "
On the last day of his arrest Pavel Levinov managed to play tricks on the absurdity, of which he was forced to participate. During the tour the attendant saw something unusual in the cell: the bed of the prisoner was temporarily covered with a white sheet with a red stripe in the middle, and on the pillowcase that lay on top it was written: "Freedom to political prisoners of Belarus!".
But the most outrageous for Pavel Levinov was the fact that the month of food in the IVS costs more than 350 rubles.
"Let them sort it out, where are we being fooled: either here on the spot, or up there?" Is that the hunk of bread and the spoon of porridge that did not see any butter or milk, and that cutlet, apparently made from unsullied bread, costs 11 rubles and 50 kopecks? And they bring this food to those arrested from the cafe "Belaya Rus", where the employees of the regional executive committee eat. I would like to invite the chairman of the regional executive committee and treat him with these delicacies, wishing me a pleasant appetite. "
"But I know one thing, when the time changes and we change places, I will do my best to be fed here well," Pavel Levinov concluded, applauding the audience.
S. Horky
