A year has passed since the execution of Kanavalau and Kavaliou: human rights defenders put new questions
The first anniversary of the execution
of Uladzislau Kavaliou and Dzmitry Kanavalau, sentenced to death on
charges of terrorism, is being marked this days. Pitifully enough,
the exact date of the execution remains unknown: it is only known
that it was conducted on 11-15 March.
During a press
conference held in Minsk on 13 March, the mother of one of the
executed, Liubou Kavaliova, stated that she had finally received an
answer to her review appeal to the Supreme Court, filed by the
counsel back in September 2012. The answer was found in Bar
Association #2 of Leninski district of Minsk where the lawyer worked.
It had been filed back in November 2012.
Participants of the
event which was held at the office of the "For Freedom"
movement were also lawyer and human rights defender Raman Kisliak,
human rights defender Pavel Levinau and the head of the "Human
Rights Alliance" center Liudmila Hraznova.
Liudmila
Hraznova stated that the things Liubou Kavaliova was doing were a
real exploit of a mother who continued her struggling for the honor
of her killed son and justice despite the threats she was receiving.
Human rights defender Rasman Kisliak stated that it was
important to find out which state institution executed the death
verdict to Kanavalau and Kavaliou:
"This can be either
remand prison #1 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where death
convicts are usually kept, or the remand prison of the KGB where
Kavaliou was kept. "It is necessary to find out who had
conducted the execution in order to plan future activities and find
from whom to demand answers," said Mr. Kisliak.
According
to him, the next step will be the demand to reveal the place of
Kavaliou's burial. He also stated that human rights defenders were
going to demand the annulment of the legal provision, according to
which relatives of death convicts were not issued with their bodies.
Bear in mind that 15 people died and 315 were injured as a
result of the explosion at the metro station "Kastrychnitskaya"
in Minsk on 11 April 2011. Dzmitry Kanavalau was charged with the
commitment of the terrorist act and Uladzislau Kavaliou was declared
his accomplice. The both of them were citizens of Vitsebsk. On 30
November they were sentenced to death by the Supreme Court.
On
10 December 2012 Belarusian human rights defenders awarded Liubou
Kavaliova the title "Human rights defender of the year" for
the selfless struggle for her son's good name. She was also declared
"Person of the year 2012 in Vitsebsk" according to the
results of the voting at "People's News of Vitsebsk"
website.
