Belarus: A Culture of Imprisonment? President Lukashenka amnesties 40 percent of Belarus’ prison population.
MINSK, Belarus--This year, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka will release thousands of prisoners, the sixth mass amnesty that he has declared in his nearly decade-long presidency. This time, though, the amnesty will be particularly broad, with 20,000 inmates set to leave prison. This will reduce the country’s prison population by 40 percent.
In 2002, 7,000 prisoners were set free and thousands of other terms were shortened by a year.
First on the list of those to walk free are World War II veterans, pensioners, young offenders, pregnant women, people with disabilities, women and men with young children, and others sentenced for minor crimes. Among those amnestied by Lukashenka is Yuri Bandashevsky, who is recognized by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations as a political prisoner. A professor, Bandashevsky was jailed in 1999 for alleged bribery. Amnesty International believes that the real reason for his eight-year sentence was his criticism of the Belarusian authorities’ handling of the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
BELARUS’ OVERCROWDED PRISONS
Lukashenka has presented this and previous amnesties as an act of humanity. Critics, however, argue that it is merely a means of relieving some of the pressure caused by severe overcrowding.
Belarus has the fifth-highest imprisonment rate in the world. Prior to the amnesty, there were close to 50,000 prisoners in a country of 9.9 million.
According to the International Helsinki Federation, prisoners and detainees in Belarus typically have less than one square meter of space, including bed space, in dirty, dusty, and rarely ventilated cells. In some extremely overcrowded jails, prisoners have to take turns sleeping. Prisoners are not given enough food, are forced to use inadequate hygiene facilities, and do not always receive the medical care or medicines that they need.
Belarus’ own figures make only slightly better reading. A 2002 Interior Ministry report found that low-security prisons held 20.8 percent more people than their "maximum capacity." In high- and maximum-security prisons the percentage was 35.9, and in pre-trial detention centers it was 26.8 percent.
The report found that tuberculosis is a serious problem: 15 percent of Belarusians with tuberculosis are prisoners, as are 10 percent of those suffering from its most virulent form. Moreover, 1,126 prisoners were HIV-positive (22 percent of all registered HIV-positive cases in the country), 1,286 were drug addicts, and 9,907 were chronic alcoholics. Over 25 percent of the convicts were suffering from some form of mental disorder.
Treatment by the authorities is rough. According to the International Helsinki Federation, there have been instances when prisoners have been forced to work without pay. The federation also found physical abuse to be commonplace and punishments harsh, with those accused of breaking prison rules put into cells where temperatures can fall far below zero in winter and where the concrete floors are often covered in water. Punishments can be still more severe. In 2001, young prisoners in a center for juvenile delinquents in Vitebsk rioted after some were placed in disciplinary cells for smoking. Special police units quashed the riot using rubber truncheons and tear gas. The rioters were dispersed among other camps, and their demands--for an end to marching drills, the lifting of a ban on food sent by parents, and personnel changes in the prison’s management--were ignored.
Letters from prisoners to the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and the UN Office in Belarus indicate that, in some prisons, special police units are allowed to practice their hand-to-hand-combat skills on prisoners.
Conditions are particularly hard for the 43 percent of prisoners in high-security prisons and the 24 percent under maximum-security regimes.
Despite these problems, Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov believes that Belarusian prisons are the best in the CIS. According to the minister, the state spends 120,000 Belarusian rubles (54 euros) per month on each prisoner.
A CULTURE OF IMPRISONMENT?
Observers and human rights organizations see attempts to ease overcrowding, rather than any humane interest in the welfare of prisoners or their rights, as the main reason for the amnesty. They point as an example to the case of Yuri Kapachow, who died in 2002 at the age of 25 after contracting pulmonary tuberculosis in prison. Kapachow, who was serving an eight-year sentence, was diagnosed in spring 1999 and was treated twice in the prison hospital. He was released in July 2000, by which time he was too weak to walk without support. His mother filed a lawsuit; however, in a move criticized by human rights activists, the proceedings were closed to the public on the grounds that they involved "classified materials"--in this case, government guidelines on the treatment of prisoners. The court acquitted the prison authorities of wrongdoing.
While not acknowledging a causal relationship between the amnesty and prison conditions, Naumov noted in November that the amnesty would leave each prisoner with two square meters in a cell, as Belarus’ prison standards require.
Ryhor Vasilevich, the head of the country’s Constitutional Court, has gone much further, calling for terms to be cut to reflect the level of overcrowding.
Hary Pahaniaila, the deputy chair of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, believes that much more is needed than a regular amnesty. Cells just vacated by prisoners are immediately filled with new inmates. Despite a few liberal provisions, the Belarusian criminal code is too severe. Prison sentences are imposed much more frequently than in other countries. For example, fines are levied in just 2.6 percent of sentences. During the Soviet era, fines accounted for 16 percent of sentences.
Some recent laws relating to bribery have made the code still more severe. A person convicted of bribery may have almost all his property confiscated and be sentenced to anywhere from three months to six years, a range that gives judges substantial leeway for imposing arbitrary sentences. But Pahaniaila’s principal objection is the expansion of the definition of a public officeholder. Teachers and doctors are now viewed as government officials: In an extreme case, sweets presented to a doctor could potentially put a him behind bars for months or years.
Moreover, the code contains an article on "speculation"--illegal trading--in consumer goods that is similar to laws in Cuba and North Korea.
Human rights defenders insist that the solution to overcrowding in prisons lies principally in changing crime legislation to make punishment better reflect the offense. But what happens in the courts and the independence of judges are issues that will not be affected by changes to the criminal code.
--by Dzmitry Markusheuski
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