Dear colleagues!
Our country, Belarus, is now in an extremely difficult situation. What can I say – the entire region is going through important historical events, most of them, unfortunately, tragic.
Speaking about our country now, we can list for a long time all the problems that Belarusians have faced in recent years, but we, as human rights activists, are more interested in the legal default that occurred in 2020, which continues to this day, more than other problems. The issue that is of the highest priority which concerns us most as dissidentby is the issue of political prisoners in Belarus.
In order for those present to have a clearer picture of what is happening in our country, I would like to present some numbers:
According to our estimates, more than 13 thousand people were detained in the first days after the elections; people were severely beaten during detention and tortured in detention centers. We know of at least 5,000 cases of beatings and torture, but we understand that there may be many more.
Today there are more than 1,500 political prisoners. The total number of people who faced criminal political prosecution is more than 6,500 cases. And that’s just what we know. 23 people died, 6 of them died while serving their sentences. More than 37,000 administrative cases were recorded by human rights activists.
Another challenge for me and my colleagues is that Lukashenko’s regime is not limited to large-scale repressions. He learns to attack the most vulnerable, for example, relatives of political prisoners, incl. senior-age relatives and children of dissidents. The regime is trying to introduce convenient narratives into the civil community and spread chaos and mistrust in the democratic community and the opposition.
But I cannot say that we feel like losers, even despite the recent years of total suppression of the rights and freedoms of citizens in the country, despite the repressions against our relatives who remained in the country.
My own mother and my husband’s mother are called to the KGB every 3-4 months, they are threatened, despite the fact that we have not lived in the country for more than 3 years.
Despite everything stated above, we continue to defend human rights, fight to preserve the human dignity of Belarusians, and try our best to help them both in prison and after serving unjust sentences.
The challenges posed to human rights and common sense by the dictator’s regime are met with a worthy response from an extensive and strong network of human rights organizations and foundations. Together with my colleagues, we learned to quickly respond to the sophisticated and sometimes terrifying forms of pressure that the regime can exert, for example, on the relatives of political prisoners.
We are creating coalitions within which we are able to act as quickly and efficiently as possible, covering most of the needs of repressed Belarusians.
I’m now talking about the “humanitarian ambulance service” which includes my dear colleague and Olga Zazulinskaya with the “Country for Life” foundation.
What we need now is your support.
Of course, this is also financial support, because most of us are in forced migration, while being under pressure from the special services of the Lukashenko regime, and organizing assistance to political prisoners is a very labor-intensive and resource-intensive process.
We need your expertise in those issues that our country is faced with for the first time and on such a terrible scale. For example, on the issues of rehabilitation of victims of repression and torture.
We need your voices to remind the global democratic community of our existence, of the horrors that may go unnoticed in the news feed today.
And, of course, we need your understanding and solidarity, because… this is the only possible basis for effective and long-lasting cooperation in the struggle for human rights.
The dictatorship has definitely not disappeared anywhere, the repressions have not stopped even a millimeter, however, we are not standing still: we are developing and uniting with those who are ready to continue to fight for the triumph of human rights and the freedom of all political prisoners, we are inventing new ways of assistance and forms interactions under horrific conditions of total repression.
But only together we can achieve justice and the triumph of human rights! Thank you