Good afternoon!
This is the BYSOL fundrising team.
Today we want to tell you about a guy with a disability, an activist from Bobruisk. His name is Sergey, he is 42 years old. At the age of 31, his health began to deteriorate — after an examination, doctors found out that he had Parkinson's disease and gave him disability group 3, and later installed a neurostimulator.
Sergei participated in collecting signatures for Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and was an observer at the elections. After 5 months, in January 2021, there was a raid, during which law enforcers came to many activists from Babruisk. That day they came to Siarhei's house. They cut off the electricity in his apartment and broke down the door, after which the man was imprisoned for 24 hours.
Two months later, on the eve of March 25, Sergei was again detained when he was walking alone in the street. This time he was awarded 20 days. Compared to the last time, the conditions in the TDF had deteriorated greatly, so Siarhei, together with other detainees, went on hunger strike.
Then Sergei was searched twice more — in summer and fall — both in the Zeltser case. During one of the searches, when the law enforcers broke into Sergei's apartment, he was still walking badly after a recent surgery to replace a neurostimulator. They laid him on the floor, he passed out and regained consciousness on the sofa. Then he was taken to the hospital, and doctors said that Sergei had a preinfarction state.
In September 2021, Andrei Zeltser, a Belarusian IT specialist and activist, was murdered in his apartment by KGB officers. Andrei's death caused a wide resonance and became one of the brightest examples of the security agencies' harsh tactics against alleged opponents of the regime, which caused additional critical assessments both domestically and internationally — BYSOL note.
Sergei was searched for the fifth time in a year in November in the case of insulting a police officer. Then they found a two-year old repost from Tribuna.com and gave him 12 days in jail for allegedly distributing extremist materials.
After that Sergei decided to leave Belarus. He went to Latvia and lived in a refugee center for some time. Now the man has drawn up documents for disability and lives in a social apartment. His only source of income is a small pension paid by the state. He was also given a pass for all types of transportation.
However, the computer that Sergei brought with him from Belarus has finally broken down. We were approached by several members of the Belarusian diaspora in Latvia who asked us to open a collection for a new laptop for Sergei.
Thank you all very much who joined!
How much is needed?
€900
This is the cost of a simple computer for Sergey
https://www.euronics.lv/ru/it/noutbuki/noutbuki/82wu007rmx/lenovo-yoga-slim-6-14iap8-14-wuxga-oled-i7-16-gb-512-gb-swe-temno-seryj-noutbuk