By Pavel Kutsevol and Volya Vysotskaia
They stood in rows, all wearing crimson and white — the colours of the unbiased Belarusian flag, utilized by the opposition and banned by Alexander Lukashenko’s regime. The sight of tons of of girls peacefully marching in protest would grow to be a permanent image in Belarus in 2020.
Initially, these ladies, who spearheaded the biggest protest motion within the nation’s historical past, have been praised for bravely standing up for freedom and democracy in a rustic the place the regime harshly represses dissent.
Now, nearly three years later, they discover themselves in a predicament: Professional-democracy activists criticize them for his or her peaceable method towards a very merciless regime, whereas Lukashenko continues to focus on them for his or her function within the protests.
Lukashenko denies concentrating on ladies, saying in a 2021 interview that he’s “not at conflict” with them. We all know the other to be true: Girls who problem his regime have confronted inhumane remedy, intimidation, and torture. Many have been pressured to flee the nation and are continuously blackmailed with threats towards their households and youngsters.
Like Olga Ritus, who, after attending the 2020 election protests, was detained on her approach to work. Whereas being transferred to a neighborhood police station, a number of cops beat her to the bottom. One other officer dragged her by the hair.
Alyona Shcherbinskaya participated within the protests in August 2020 and was positioned within the infamous pre-trial detention heart, Okrestina, that very same month. She remembers ladies have been routinely overwhelmed by the jail guards, kicked within the legs and abdomen. After struggling a beating herself, Shcherbinskaya spent every week in hospital with inside belly and bladder accidents.
Protester Maria Zaitseva was shot a number of instances by the riot police and misplaced her listening to after a stun grenade exploded subsequent to her. Zaitseva suffered everlasting accidents and was transferred to the hospital unconscious, the place she spent a number of days in intensive care. Her {photograph} grew to become one other image of the regime’s cruelty.
Since 2020, greater than 500 Belarusian ladies have been arrested on politically motivated grounds.
They’re then positioned in a pre-trial detention heart, the place the ladies could also be subjected to torture. Pavel Rezanovich particulars such an expertise together with his 58-year-old mom, who was severely overwhelmed by KGB officers in an effort to get him to signal confession papers. Rezanovich was a defendant within the so-called “Avtukhovich case” — during which 12 defendants of assorted backgrounds have been tried in a case towards businessman and activist Mikalay Avtukhovich, who had been charged with excessive treason and terrorism.
He might hear his mom’s screams down the hall and finally signed the papers. In October 2022, he was sentenced to 19 years in jail for “participation in a legal group” and “an act of terrorism.” His mom, Liubou, was sentenced to 15 years.
Girls are sometimes positioned in overcrowded jail cells, typically with out enough entry to meals, water, clear air, or medical care. Kseniya Lutskina, a Belarusian journalist sentenced to eight years in jail in late 2022, had two mind tumors eliminated in 2014 and, whereas in jail, has reported fixed complications and tremors. Regardless of her deteriorating well being, she hasn’t acquired any medical remedy.
And extra: Girls are positioned into punishment cells for the smallest infractions, often provoked by jail guards. One other punishment is sending the ladies to particular work amenities for as much as 12 hours a day in unsanitary and unsafe circumstances. If a lady refuses work, she may very well be transferred to a male jail.
Irina Polyanina, a 51-year-old political prisoner, was arrested and sentenced to 2 years for a remark left on social media. Whereas within the colony, her coronary heart stopped due to overwork and poor work circumstances. She was resuscitated, however when freed in November 2022, she returned to an house utterly destroyed by legislation enforcement.
Feminine prisoners typically face well being issues as a result of a scarcity of fundamental hygiene. They’re pressured to sleep on naked iron bunks and concrete flooring with none bedding or linen, prevented from showering of their first week behind bars after which solely as soon as every week, with 10 ladies given solely quarter-hour. They’re not supplied with fundamental hygiene gadgets, sanitary pads, and bathroom paper.
The system is designed to interrupt an individual’s spirit.
Girls behind bars additionally face psychological and emotional pressures too, prohibited from receiving letters, speaking with family members and family members, and assembly legal professionals repeatedly.
Olga Gorbunova supplied authorized and psychological help to ladies who suffered from home violence and, in late 2021, was arrested and charged with the “group and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order or lively participation in them.” Whereas behind bars, the jail administration routinely prevented her from receiving letters from her family members however allowed letters from a person who threatened to kill her 14-year-old daughter.
Many detainees, particularly youthful ones, report having panic assaults from the psychological strain, leading to a robust bodily response similar to suffocation, vomiting, and lack of consciousness.
Sofia Sapega, a Russian nationwide, was arrested alongside together with her boyfriend, Roman Protasevich, an opposition journalist whose flight was grounded by the Belarusian authorities in Could 2021. She is consistently barred from assembly together with her family members, with jail administration planting forbidden objects and accusing her of violating jail guidelines.
Some individuals could be disadvantaged of visits from family members and family members for years in Belarusian prisons.
When ladies go away prisons, their nightmares don’t finish. Many attain out to psychologists and family members for emotional assist however are as a substitute blamed for his or her arrests or mistreatment in jail. The road of argument that’s pervasive in Belarus is, basically: “Effectively, what have been you pondering giving that interview?” Its solely goal is to make ladies really feel extra remoted and confined. Feminine political prisoners are additionally also known as “zechka” — a derogatory time period used to explain ladies who’ve gone by means of jail.
Within the final three years, Lukashenko has destroyed just about each group or initiative serving to ladies. So Politvyazynka, a Poland-based group, has stepped in, shining a light-weight on the struggles ladies who go away prisons face, saying they’re typically traumatized and closed off socially, having grow to be inherently extra suspicious and distrustful.
Outdoors of jail, ladies who converse towards Lukashenko are blackmailed by authorities with the custody of their kids.
In late 2020, on the peak of the demonstrations, the Prosecutor Basic’s Workplace of Belarus made a public assertion, saying it could take away kids from households concerned in anti-government actions — and the regime rapidly delivered on the promise. In March 2022, authorities took the property of Viktoryia Onakhava-Zhurauliova as “compensation for injury brought on by a criminal offense.” They revoked her proper to undertake kids as properly — Viktoryia has 13 kids, 9 of whom are adopted. Her crime? She left a remark vital of Lukashenko on social media.
These are grave and systematic human rights abuses deliberately perpetrated by a legal regime. The worldwide democratic group should do extra to help Belarusian ladies and maintain perpetrators to account.
