“Arrhythmia, severe chest pain, insomnia”: the lawyer spoke about the condition of “Novaya” columnist Shklyarov, who is in a Minsk pre-trial detention center

Vitaly Shklyarov, a Russian political strategist and regular contributor to Novaya Gazeta, who is in a Minsk pre-trial detention center, has deteriorated sharply after suffering from the coronavirus without treatment. This was announced by lawyer Anton Gashinsky, who defends the interests of Shklyarov

“In fact, he suffered the disease without a single pill. After his illness, he lost a lot of weight. And on Friday it became known that he had a post-coronavirus syndrome: heart problems, arrhythmia, severe chest pains, and insomnia began. Today, when a lawyer visited the pre-trial detention center, he was not taken out. Tomorrow I will try to visit it in the morning. I don’t know if he will be alive, ” Gashinsky said in a conversation with TUT.BY.

On September 8, Shklyarov began to feel unwell, he had muscle pain, malaise and fever for several days. However, in the pre-trial detention center they did not test him for COVID-19 and refused to treat him. Later, the political strategist was given a test that showed the presence of antibodies in his body.

Shklyarov was detained in Minsk 10 days before the presidential elections in Belarus: according to the security forces, he helped blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky when he tried to run for president. The political consultant denies the accusations and believes that he is being persecuted for political reasons because of his materials on the situation in Belarus. Officially, Shklyarov was charged with organizing group actions that grossly violate public order (part 1 of article 342 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus): under this article, he faces up to three years in prison.