Belarusian President for Life Alexander Lukashenko has been releasing political prisoners in an effort to gain favor with the West and US President for Life hopeful Donald Trump. Belarus has been hurt by sanctions for it’s support of Russian President for Life Vladimir Putin in his attempt to take over Ukraine, and hopes to see some relief (CNN). Putin has been attacking Ukraine since the former President for Life Viktor Yanukovich abandoned his post in the face of mass protests and pending impeachment.
There are over 1100 political prisoners still in Belarusian prisons. “The repression that filled those cells began during the widely disputed presidential election of August 2020, when hundreds of thousands of Belarusians took to the streets to demand Lukashenko’s exit” (The Guardian). Nobel peace prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, founder of Viasna, is among the incarcerated. Belarus’ prisons are worse than Russia’s.
“There is the ‘disco’ – when they beat you with a stun gun while you are cuffed,” he said. “The ‘quick charge’ is a full-power shock. And the ‘lawyer’ is when guards beat you with batons. You say, ‘I want a lawyer’. They reply, ‘here’s your lawyer’.” The Guardian
“The world does not imagine the full scale of what is happening in Belarus. I spent a year in a penal colony. If other people saw what this penal colony was like, they would think they were in the Middle Ages. I woke up many times in the middle of the night, hearing grown men literally howling,” Mikalay Dziadok said. Radio Free Europe
Some of the released political prisoners, although thankful to President Trump for being freed to Lithuania, are critical. They say Lukashenko is using them as bargaining chips as the repression of their countryman continues.
“The most important thing is not to substitute the liberation of the country [from Lukashenko] with the release of political prisoners,” said Sergei Sparysh, a 39-year-old activist from the Narodnaya Hramada party freed in the same deal. The Guardian
One detainee, Mikalai Statkevich, refused deportation and hasn’t been heard from since.
On 1 September 2020, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) declared that its experts received reports of 450 documented cases of torture and ill-treatment of people who were arrested during the protests following the presidential election. The experts also received reports of violence against women and children, including sexual abuse and rape with rubber batons.[205] According to the OHCHR, both male and female detainees were subjected to rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence. Medical records reviewed by OHCHR indicate lesions and other injuries to the male genitalia associated with forcible twisting and rape. Psychological violence, including threats of rape, was also used against detainees. At least three detainees suffered injuries indicative of sexual violence in Okrestino prison in Minsk or on the way there. The victims were hospitalized with intramuscular bleeding of the rectum, anal fissure and bleeding, and damage to the mucous membrane of the rectum. In an interview from September 2020 Lukashenko claimed that detainees faked their bruises, saying, “Some of the girls there had their butts painted in blue” Wikipedia
Let’s not consider lifting sanctions from Putin’s lapdog Lukashenko’s regime while people still suffer. This is not the way to deal with tyranny.
- Trump cuts aid to Baltic States 4dforum
- Belarus: Systematic Beatings, Torture of Protesters Human Rights Watch
- Female political prisoners in Belarus face abuse, humiliation and threats of losing parental rights AP News
- At Night The Screaming Began’: Firsthand Account Of Torture At Minsk Detention Center Radio Free Europe
- Belarus torture prisons ‘use sadists to break Lukashenko’s opponents’ The Times
- A freed political prisoner refuses to be deported from Belarus and promptly vanishes AP News
- Imprisoned Belarus activist resurfaces after no contact with her family for 20 months AP News