Free Georges

To: Mr. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Mr. Guy Verhofstadt
To: Mr. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

President of Russia

Custodian of the Human and Civil Rights and Liberties1




To: Mr. Guy Verhofstadt

Prime-Minister of the Kingdom of Belgium







Honourable Statesmen:




By signing the present petition we express our outrage with the medical and humanitarian situation of Mr. Georges Kaszirer of Antwerp, who is in pre-trial custody at the Lefortova-Prison in Moscow under scrutiny of the FSB (ex-KGB). Georges, who previously was a healthy and strong man, is now for over one year in custody in cruel, inhumane and degrading conditions and in a terrible hygienic and medical state: he has lost 17 kg, lost 50\% of his sight capacity in his right eye, suffers from an acute hernia and tenacious eczema and therefore needs specialised medical care which he is being denied, as well as proper medication, he may not wear a watch and his eyeglasses are taken away from him after a certain hour, the lighting in his cell equals permanent twilight, which amounts to pure and purposeless torture. He is confined 23 hours per day to his prison cell and may not lie on his bed during daytime, only sit on it, he is entitled to one shower a week, he may have only two v! isits a month of one hour, he is denied any telephonic contact with his four minor children for one year already and is being subjected to even more tortuous conditions to such an extent that he has started showing some alarming suicidal signs.




Such a treatment is in clear contravention of the U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, executed in New York on 10 December 1984 and entered into force on 26 June 1987, and of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, executed in Strasbourg on 26 November 1987, to which the Russian Federation is a signatory.




We, family members, friends, business partners and people who care and appreciate Georges Kaszirer, therefore urge both of you to take whatever steps are necessary in order to immediately put an end to this tortuous and degrading incarceration of a Belgian citizen, who still enjoys the presumption of innocence.