How do Belarus’s political prisoners pass their time?
Па ўдакладненні звяWe called his wife Irina who visited her husband in the correction colony on May 17.
“He told me that he tried to play once, but he suffered from backaches and paining leg. His health condition does not allow him to play football,” Irina told our radio.
The wife of the political prisoner also refuted allegations that the ex-candidate had completely recovered after the hunger strike.
“His health condition is not fine. But compared to the hunger strike, it is of course better. There is a lack of proper diet in order to restore and improve his health there,” she said.
Still weak for work-out, Kozulin devotes his free time to reading and is presently creating a prison library.
“We have brought 202 books to him. Those books were gathered by the Belorusy I Rynok newspaper for political prisoner Levanevski. But while they were collecting them, Levanevski was released. So, now the books went to Kozulin,” Irina said.
The collection includes a variety of books ranging from the classical literature and detective stories to economics and political science manuals. Therefore, rumors about Kozulin feeing fine and enjoying football have turned out to be not trustworthy. All the political prisoner can afford for now is to read, listen to the birds singing, sort out the books and write. His wife does not know what Alexander Kozulin is writing. In fact, he is doubtful that he would be allowed to keep what he has written after the release.
Irina: “He writes. But it is not clear if they allow him to keep it.”
Another political prisoner Mikalai Statkevich also shared with the European Radio for Belarus how he passes free time. He is currently serving his exile term in a village 5 km off the Marjina Horka town.
“I read various books, mainly about economics, politics and culture. Right now I have the Dzejaslou magazine and the English-language textbooks on my desk. Apart from reading, I also go to the gym three times a week in the evenings,” he told our radio.
Siargej Skrabets described his time-passing during two periods: when he was in a Brest prison and when he was in a correction colony.
“In Brest, the cell was very small. You could either lie or stand. They would ban us from lying. So we read and played chess,” Skrabets said.
While in jail, he read through the whole collection of Kurt Wanegutt, Chekhov, Markes and others. Playing chess was not fun, because there was no decent contender for him till Kozulin came over.
Skrabets: “Kozulin is an excellent chess player. It would be hard for me to play him. In fact, he won the prison chess tournament.”
Different from the prison, Skrabets had more opportunities for time-passing in the colony.
“It is better there than in prison, because I could play table-tennis, football, volleyball, basketball every day. We would request the colony’s administration and they would normally agree. We eve had our own football team and played the teams from other colony sectors. But we were a weak team. We would also lose to the others,” Skrabets said.
But all of the interviewees came to the conclusion that despite all the encouragement from the colony’s administration, time-passing is more fun when you are free.
Photo by photo.bymedia.net
