Human rights activists claim that a 22-year-old political prisoner has died in Belarus

A 22-year-old political prisoner died in a prison in Belarus, the country’s oldest human rights organization reported on Saturday.

Russian-born Dmitriy Schletgauer, who served 12 years in prison for espionage and “facilitating extremist activities”, is the seventh dissident to die in prison since Minsk began a sharp and wide-ranging repression for the opposition in 2020, the Viasna rights center reported.

A huge protest spread across Belarus after a disputed election it gave authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office, with his critics and the West calling it rigged. In response, authorities arrested tens of thousands of people.

Human rights groups say the country currently holds about 1,300 political prisoners, with many of them denied adequate medical care and contact with their families.

According to Wiasna, whose founder, Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialyatsky, is himself imprisonedBelarusian authorities have refused to reveal the cause of Schletgauer’s death, which occurred on October 11 but became known only recently.

“The death of another political prisoner illustrates the catastrophe in Belarusian prisons, where conditions that resemble torture are created, political prisoners are denied medical care, and opposition leaders have been held in solitary confinement for over a year,” said Pavel Sapelka, representative of Viasna. AP.

“A young man died behind bars and the authorities are responsible for this,” he said.

According to Sapelka, Schletgauer became a father while in custody. Sapelka said that the Russian citizen, who obtained a residence permit in Belarus in 2018, worked in a polymer factory before his arrest.

Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, whose husband is Siarhei Tsikhanouskaya is serving a 19 and a half year sentence in Belarus, called for an independent investigation into Schletgauer’s death and said international experts should be allowed into the country’s prisons.

“We need to know the truth about deaths in prisons, which have turned into a black hole in Belarus. Urgent international action is needed to prevent further attacks,” Tsikhanouskaya said.