According to the unofficial sources, which cannot be disclosed due to their safety, the head of the Union of Poles in Belarus (ZPB), Andżelika Borys, is kept imprisoned in inhumane conditions, the organisation’s website znadniemna.pl reported.
The portal stated that the activist was kept in an overcrowded cell with no place to sleep.
Znadniemna.pl wrote that Andżelika Borys and other Union activists – Irena Biernacka, Maria Tiszkowska and Andrzej Poczobut, were transferred from the detention centre in Minsk to the prison No. 8 in Zhodino, some 50 kilometres east of the Belarusian capital.
“Our sources say that Andżelika Borys asked to spread the information that she has been in the prison in Zhodino for three days. The conditions in which the Polish activist is kept are reminiscent of torture, as she was imprisoned in an overcrowded cell where there are not enough places to sleep. Apart from Andżelika Borys, 15 people are imprisoned in the cell,” reported the ZPB website.
“Andżelika Borys perceives inhuman living conditions as pressure on her in connection with the investigation against activists of the Polish minority in Belarus under Article 130 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus, which talks about incitement to ethnic hatred and the rehabilitation of Nazism, which is threatened by imprisonment from 5 to 12 years,” znadmiena.pl added.
“Despite the inhumane conditions, Andżelika Borys stressed that under any pressure she did not intend to admit to absurd allegations,” the website wrote.
Andżelika Borys, the head of the Union of Poles in Belarus, was detained in March in Grodno by local police officers. The reason for the detention was the celebration of St. Casimir’s Day (March 4) which was organised by the association without permission from the authorities. Ms Borys was allegedly “involved in the incitement to ethnic hatred and rehabilitation of Nazism”, as the case is related to the commemoration of the so-called Indomitable Soldiers, some of whom were reportedly involved in genocide on the Belarusian civil population after WWII.