Price of the word

Every word has its weight. Every word is able both to cure and kill.

On March 14, a press conference “Broken Hopes: Repressions in Belarus in the Aftermath of the Presidential Elections” was held in the Independent Press Centre in Moscow on the occasion of a report released by Human Right Watch, one of the world’s leading human rights organization.

The theme and the content is clear from the title. But I heard two remarks at the press conference that got my attention. Russian human rights activist Valentine Gefter said: “I do not believe people are tortured in the KGB.” Then Ales Byalatski, the head of Viasna Human Rights Centre, remarked: “I tend to agree with Valentin, thought we have some evidence that people are twisted their arms when being taken to interrogations and made to sleep in a certain position.”

In the context, in which the phrases were said, every word has its weight, every word is able both to cure and kill. “We have some evidence” – these are rather strange words for the Vice President of the International Federation for Human Rights. Ales definitely knows about pubic evidence by Ales Mikhalevich, Natallya Radzina and Alyaksandr Atroshchankau, who gave consistent and detailed facts of tortures. He also definitely knows about non-public evidence by those who were released from the KGB jail on their own recognizance.

Of course, we can organize a scholastic dispute on what can be considered a torture and what cannot. But the Dictionary of Legal Terms defines this word as “any action that intentionally inflicts severe pain or suffering, both physical or psychological, to a person with a purpose to made this person or a third person say or admit something or to punish him…” Well, we can also pay attention to the phrase “I do not believe” by Valentin Gefter, who seems to have chosen a role of Stanislavsky in the sphere of human rights. It’s a strange coincidence of circumstances, but Human Rights Watch preferred to believe human rights activists more than the victims and didn’t touched upon tortures in the KGB jail in its report.

Mikalai Khalezin, kilgor-trautt.livejournal.com