Comments by Pavel Latushka to Gazeta Wyborcza
Original article: wyborcza.pl
A Belarusian artist died in prison in Grodno "under unclear circumstances". - Unfortunately, this is not the last such terrible case," said the former Belarusian ambassador to Poland.
- His death is a strong blow," said Pavel Latushka, former Belarusian ambassador to Poland. "Unfortunately, this is not the first, but also not the last such terrible case, because for Lukashenko a person does not matter," he adds.
Opposition activist and political prisoner Ales Pushkin died on 11 July "under unclear circumstances." He was transported to the intensive care unit. He was 57 years old.
Pushkin was in prison No. 1 in Hrodna after he was convicted by the Belarusian court in March 2022 under the article prohibiting the propaganda of Nazism. According to investigators of the Belarusan regime, Pushkin violated the ban by drawing and then displaying a portrait of Yevgeny Zhikhar , a Belarusian poet and anti-Soviet independence fighter, at an exhibition in Grodno.
"Although his family does not yet know the details of his death, it is already known that he is another tragic victim of the Lukashenko regime," wrote Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on Twitter.
- Nowhere in Europe in the last 40-50 years have there been so many political prisoners as there are now in Belarus. Something so horrible is happening so close that one can kill a man in prison and no one will be punished for it.
You can shoot, rape with a police baton.... We have at least a hundred such examples," Latushka said.
The Human Rights Centre "Viasna" reports that the number of political prisoners in Belarus has reached an unprecedented level - more than 1,500 people.
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