Maryna Adamovich, the wife of the political prisoner Mikola Statkevich, visited him in prison on 26th December, about which she informed on her Facebook account.

I have seen Mikola today! He is incredible! He asked me to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. He also wanted me to spread these words: Have no fear! Everything will be alright – she wrote.

It was a regular, two-hour prison visit, with bars, panes, and a telephone.

I went to see Mikola as soon as I was granted a visit. He has not changed at all, despite these three years behind bars. He has managed to keep his smile, an ability to make apt and accurate comments, his intelligent eyes have not lost their bright shine. He requested that I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year on his behalf. He also wished the upcoming year would bring changes for the better, make you courageous enough not to shrink away from anything. – said Maryna.

Mikola Statkevich was one of the candidates at the presidential election in 2010. He got arrested after mass protests against ballot rigging.

On 26th May 2011, the Partizansky Court in Minsk sentenced him to six years’ imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony.

By the court’s decision from 12th January 2012, the pressure on Statkevich has been intensified with more severe conditions of confinement, and he was transferred from the penal colony IK-17 in Shklov to the prison No. 4 in Mohylev.

Statkevich is often locked up in solitary confinement, he is almost completely isolated from his family. The authorities organize provocations against him.