We demand the immediate release of Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk
Statement of the Civil campaign European Belarus due to inhuman conditions of detention of political prisoner Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk.
The administration of the women’s Penal Colony No 24 (Zarechcha) continues to exert enormous pressure on the activist of the European Belarus Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk.
Palina spent almost three months in the ShIZO (punishment cell) in less than 4 months of her stay in the colony. This violates all the rules of detention.
Palina has been imprisoned since January 4, 2021.
Judge Yauhen Brehan issued the verdict on June 9 and sentenced her to two years in prison under three articles of the Criminal Code: Article 368 (“Insulting the President”), Article 369 (“Insulting a government official”) and Article 364 (“Violence or threat of violence against an employee of the internal affairs bodies”).
She served her sentence in the Homiel colony, but on April 7, 2022, the judge of the Chyhunachny District Court of Homiel, Mikalai Krupadziorau, sentenced her to one more year in prison in addition to the main term of imprisonment. After that, the political prisoner was transferred to the Women’s Penal Colony No 24 in Zarechcha.
Palina’s husband, Andrei Sharenda, who was threatened with arrest, managed to leave Belarus. Their two minor children were also taken out of the country.
Palina is under severe pressure in the colony because of her brave stand in defending her human rights and human dignity.
The European Belarus demands an immediate end to the torture that a courageous opposition activist is suffering in the colony.
We warn the head of the Penal Colony No 24, Colonel of Internal Service Dzmitry M. Kurlovich, about his personal responsibility for the life and health of Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk, as well as the criminal liability that he and the colony personnel will face for the inhuman treatment of prisoners.
We demand the immediate release of Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk, the political prisoner convicted on fabricated charges.
The European Belarus urges the international community, human rights activists, journalists, public figures of other countries, and all people of goodwill to pay attention to what is happening to Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk and thousands of Belarusian political prisoners (and there are more than four thousand of them in Belarus) and demand from their governments more effective measures to put pressure on the dictatorial Lukashenka regime to release Palina and all other political prisoners.
We need your solidarity!