Our leaders are in prison now. I don’t know others!

I am ashamed, sirs. I am ashamed of myself and my colleagues.

Svyatlana Kalinkina is absolutely right writing about the prison life of Mikita Likhavid, a boy, but a hero, a real citizen of his country, who suffers not for money or a good position, not for political ambitions, but for his beliefs, for freedom and democracy in his country. This material was like a rebuke to me, the state that was aggravated by a prison message from Zmitser Bandarenka, who lives in the hell. Not quotation marks are needed here, it is the real hell!

Being children, we used to admire guerillas and underground fighters, who kept courage in Gestapo prisons and did not betray friends. But what is happening in Belarus, a democratic, as the Constitution says, country? Bandarenka, Sannikov, Likhavid, Statkevich, Uss and other “Decembrists” serve punishment over criminal cases but being absolutely innocent. How do they feel being enemies among so called friends? How can they display the highest spirit, decency and honour in the hostile surrounding? There, outside prison, is Belarus, too. But they are committed to the other, real Belarus, not Belarus shown on television. To the Belarus they want to build: independent, democratic, free, where a citizen is the highest title in the state.

They, the “Decembrists”, were convicted only by the authorities, not society. People take them as people, who suffer for the truth. In this case, why do we hear that our colleague Zmitser Bandarenka says via his wife that he does not understand what is happening? I mean he says that he receives independent newspapers in the detention facility, but he almost doesn’t see articles about the people imprisoned after the protests against the rigged elections. He also says he is surprised to learn that the press writes more about those who were not imprisoned after the December 19 events than about the prisoners or those whose life is under real threat… Volha Bandarenka states: “The Belarusian independent newspapers write more about, for example, Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu, Andrei Dzmitryeu or Vital Rymasheuski than about Andrei Sannikov, Zmitser Bandarenka and other prisoners of conscience. It is important for inmates when papers write about political prisoners. They read independent press in prisons. This gives a certain protection and supports the spirits.”

I risk again to displease my opposition friends, but let me recall another quotation of 22.06.2011: “At the time when a competitor in the presidential elections, Andrei Sannikov, serves his term in a medium security penal colony and remains under a threat of killing (in any case, he writes about this), Tell the Truth movement applies to the Ministry of Justice for registration the organization as the republican public educational association. How quick the spin doctors from the movement are! They are the winners: friends and opponents, the former presidential candidates, were imprisoned, fled abroad or just not deal with politics now, but they’ve set a camp on the political ruins and start flogging their second-hand information goods to forgetful people!”

Is not it the thing Zmitser Bandarenka, waiting for a serious spine surgery in jail, says with pain about? Is not is the Truth that must be told?

A normal person cannot understand why tortures can be used in the 21st century in a European, so to say, state: “Zmitser said that they try to turn political prisoners into disabled persons. The aim of the authorities is to destroy them morally and physically. According to him, he applied for proper medical aid for the first time in the KGB jail in late February, but he received the first aid in the Interior Ministry’s jail on June 22. His health was ruined during the first two months in the KGB jail, when he ran with a mattress and two bags up and down the stairs during constant searches, when he remained in stretched position for an hour or two. He did not have a berth in the KGB jail, he had to sleep on boards on the cold floor. There was not a toilet in the cell, it was a real torture,” the wife of political prisoner told charter97.org.

It should be reminded that Zmitser Bandarenka is the only persons detained after the peaceful demonstration on December 19, 2010, who was convicted for violation of the article “organizing and preparing the actions that breach public order, or taking active part in such actions” (article 342, part 1 of the Criminal Code of Belarus).

I’m going to say the next: people see everything and understand everything. You can deceive one person, two or ten, but not the whole society. Actions speak louder than words. Our democratic leaders, who, I repeat, were convicted unlawfully, are in prison now. I do not know others!

Yauheny Ahurtsou, “Belorusski Partizan”