Mahiliou journalists Ales Asiptsou and Alexander Burakou are free!

Alexan­der Burak­ou was released at 10:30 a.m. He said he felt okay, but looked pret­ty tired. The jour­nal­ist expressed his grat­i­tude for sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty to col­leagues and human rights activists who met him at the gates of the deten­tion cen­ter.

«I felt sol­i­dar­i­ty even in the deten­tion cen­ter, when I received post­cards with words of sup­port, and it was very mov­ing,» — said the jour­nal­ist.

Alexan­der told BAJ that the jail per­son­nel behaved respect­ful­ly.

«How­ev­er, at the deten­tion cen­ter, I wrote two com­plaints. The first was about the tem­per­a­ture at the facil­i­ty. It was very cold, and I had to cov­ered myself with a mat­tress to keep warm. I think it should be con­sid­ered as tor­ture. The sec­ond com­plaint was about my phone, that seems to be used by some­one while I was in jail: it was ful­ly charged and turned off before my arrest, but it was on and with emp­ty bat­tery when they gave it back to me», — the jour­nal­ist said.

Alexan­der Burak­ou says, despite the repres­sions, he will con­tin­ue his work as a jour­nal­ist and human rights activist.

After his release, Alexan­der went home to fresh­en up, and imme­di­ate­ly returned to meet his col­league Ales Asipt­sou.

Asipt­sou was released from cus­tody at about 12:40 p.m. He said he had to wait two min­utes at the gates of the jail, as the per­son­nel released him only at a des­ig­nat­ed time.

Ales Asipt­sou was on hunger strike through his deten­tion.  To a ques­tion about his health, he respond­ed that he felt quite okay: «if not for short­breath­ing» and «a lit­tle dizzi­ness some­times».

Asipt­sou also not­ed that it had been very cold in the deten­tion cen­ter, and he could not always fall asleep.

Ales thanked his col­leagues for their sol­i­dar­i­ty. He received post­cards and news­pa­pers in jail.

Anoth­er Mahil­iou jour­nal­ist — Alexan­der Burak­ou Jr. — is serv­ing his sen­tence in the same deten­tion cen­ter. On May 15 Lenin­s­ki dis­trict court of Mahil­iou found him guilty under the same charges and pun­ished him with 10 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion. 

Yes­ter­day after­noon Mikhail Arshyn­s­ki was unex­pect­ed­ly released from Mahil­iou deten­tion cen­ter. Mikhail had served his sen­tence of 10 days of jail. How­ev­er, the jour­nal­ist may find him­self in jail again, any time. As he still has to serve the remain­ing 11 days imposed by anoth­er court for anoth­er account of alleged «par­tic­i­pa­tion in an unau­tho­rized mass event».