7 Jun 2012 | Middle East and North Africa, Tunisia
13 days after police arrested him, Fathi Tlili, a coordinator for the Leftist Socialist Party (Le Parti socialiste de gauche in French), is still behind bars.
The arrest followed Tlili’s participation in protests which swept Sakiet Sidi Youssef, a small and underprivileged town in the northwest of Tunisia. On 25 May, the town’s inhabitants organised a general strike demanding employment and a local development boost.
The strike, which paralysed the town’s little economic activity, ended in acts of vandalism when unemployed protesters set official buildings and state-owned cars on fire.
Police are accusing Tlili of “inciting riot”, and of “breaking down” the local delegation’s rear door building. The PSG has denied these charges, claiming that Tlili and other party activists tried to stand up to acts of vandalism.
In a communiqué released on 3 June, PSG Secretary General Mohamed Kilani described the legal proceedings against Tlili as “a political trial”. He claims Tlili was badly treated while in prison.
“After visiting him in prison, Fathi’s wife asserted that her husband was physically abused, and badly treated. She noticed the bruises on his body,” the communiqué stated.
The Tunisian extreme left is often blamed for fuelling protests and social unrest. I an interview given to Al-Jazeera last January, Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki accused the “extreme left” of “manipulating, and politicising social protests in order to stir up trouble”.
7 Jun 2012 | Index Index, minipost, United Kingdom
The Spectator has been ordered to pay £5,600 after admitting a November 2011 article about the trial of Stephen Lawrence‘s killers breached a court order. Associate editor Rod Liddle’s piece claimed defendants Gary Dobson and David Norris — who were convicted in January 2012 of Lawrence’s 1993 murder — would not get a fair trial. It appeared in the magazine after the trial had started and an order imposed on reports that could influence the jury’s view of the defendants. The judge said the article caused a brief moment in which the trial was in jeopardy, but the magazine’s swift apology and removal of the piece online meant it was not undermined. The magazine’s lawyer apologised for its “bitterly regrettable” failure to make checks.
7 Jun 2012 | Europe and Central Asia, Index Index, minipost
Former Belarusian presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov was removed from a train travelling from Minsk to Vilnius at a station near the Lithuanian border yesterday. The activist, who was released from detention and pardoned by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko in April, was reportedly heading to a conference in the Lithuanian capital. On 2 June fellow activist Dmitri Bandarenka was also removed from a train travelling from Vilnius to Minsk. His personal belongings were searched and he was made to strip down to socks. Bandarenka was travelling from Lithuania, where he had received medical treatment, and arrived in Minsk on the next train.
6 Jun 2012 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features
Political activist Siarhei Kavalenka may have given up his hunger strike but his fight for freedom in Belarus continues, says Andrei Aliaksandrau
In January 2010 Siarhei Kavalenka, a political activist and small businessman from Vitsebsk, northern Belarus, climbed a 40-metre high New Year tree in the centre of the city and hung a red and white flag as a symbol of the Belarusian opposition.
If he had climbed the tree for any other reason, he might have faced a minor administrative trial and got away with a fine. But a red and white flag, once a national symbol and now an oppositional hallmark so much hated by the authoritarian government, cost Kavalenka a criminal conviction and a three-year suspended sentence.
On 19 December 2011, on the first anniversary of Belarus’s controversial presidential elections, Kavalenka was detained again, accused of violating the probation rules. Two months later the judge announced the verdict: 25 months in prison.
Kavalenka considers his conviction to be politically motivated. In protest against his imprisonment, he went on hunger strike for almost half a year, with only two breaks. He lost nearly 40 kilograms. His family and friends were worried for his life, let alone his health. According to his wife, Alena, who was able to meet her husband several times during his imprisonment, Kavalenka has serious health problems. In addition, she reported he faced physical torture and psychological pressure behind bars.
Many voices inside and outside Belarus and have demanded that the Belarusian authorities release Kavalenka together with all other political prisoners.
But the government of Belarus remains deaf to these appeals. Kavalenka has been refused civil medical assistance and is treated by prison doctors. In April, the authorities started force feeding him to keep him alive.
“The situation itself is beyond the legal framework because Kavalenka is sentenced illegally,” Uladzimir Labkovich, Belarusian human rights defender and lawyer, said. “He is a victim of the reprisal imposed on him by the authorities.”
Kavalenka ended his hunger strike at the end of May, but he is not giving up his fight, and nor are his family and friends. His wife, other relatives and Belarusian civil society activists have been detained several times after staging public actions of solidarity; some of them have been beaten by the police. At the moment Alena Kavalenka, Kavalenka’s cousin Kanstantsin and activist Alena Semenchukova are awaiting court hearings for chalking “Freedom to Siarhei Kavalenka!” on the pavement in front of the court building in Vitsebsk.
“He is very weak physically, but has no access to quality medical help,” Alena Kavalenka told Radio Liberty after she met her husband in prison. “I don’t know why he is being exterminated for his love for his motherland.”
Andrei Aliaksandrau is the former vice-chair of the Belarusian Association of Journalists
You can write a letter of support to Siarhei Kavalenka to his prison. The address is: PK No. 19, 3 km, Slauharadskaja shasha, Mahiliou, 213030, Belarus (In Belarusian: Каваленка Сяргей, 213030, г. Магілёў, Слаўгарадзкая шаша, 3 км, ПК №19)
