Free!

Lukashenka pardoned the political prisoners, thus acknowledging their existence.

Last Saturday by a pardon decree Lukashenka released six political prisoners, for liberation of which the West had been trying to achieve for year. The presidential candidate in the elections of 2010 Mikalai Statkevich, anarchists Ihar Alinevich, Artsyom Prakapenka, Mikalai Dzyadok, Yauhen Vaskovich and an activist Yury Rubtsou were released.

The official press release on Saturday wrote about humanity and kindness of the most august person: “Proceeding from the principle of humanity, today the president of Belarus has decided to pardon and release from places of detention…” After being released from prisons and penal colonies, the six were at home by midnight.

And so, the act of humanism has been performed. And now I am going to remind some facts from biographies of our political prisoners. Mikalai Statkevich was the only presidential candidate in the elections of 2010 who remained in prison until August 22, 2015. It was precisely a prison, not a correctional facility. In May 2011 he was sentenced to 6 years of deprivation of freedom on charges relating organizing mass riots on the day of the presidential elections. On December 19, 20100 after the meeting more than 600 persons were detained. Most of them served their terms for administrative cases, were beaten, dismissed from job or expelled from universities. 41 persons were accused criminally. In 2015 only Mikalai Statkevich was left behind the bars.

After the trial first he was sent to the penal colony №17 in Shklou, but in half a year incarceration conditions were harshened for him, and he was transferred to a closed prison (a prison №4 in Mahilyou) for 3 years. On January 12, 2015, after three years in prison, Statkevich was returned into the penal colony, but not for long: in the first two days two reports were drawn up against him for violation of internal regulations. An ambulatory court session took place again, and again a decision was passed to transfer him to a prison until the end of the term. On May 6 Mikalai Statkevich was transferred to the same Mahilyou prison. And on August 22 he was released.

Artsyom Prakapenka was arrested on Janury 17, 2011 in the anarchists’ case, for “damage of property”: to show solidarity with their comrades from Minsk who had been imprisoned, Babrujsk anarchists tried to set on fire the door of Babrujsk branch of the KGB. Artsyom was sentenced to 7 years in medium-security correctional labor facility, though the loss due to the spoiled door was Br 253,636, which was less than $100 at that moment. In February 2015, after 4 years of deprivation of freedom, Artsyom wrote a petition for pardon addressed to Lukashenka. Lukashenka denied pardon. And now he released him.

Yauhen Vaskovich is another Babrujsk anarchist, in 2011 he was sentenced to 7 years of deprivation of liberty, in a few months in a correctional labour facility he was transferred to the same prison in Mahilyou, where Statkevich was kept. The anarchist has spent 3 years in the closed prison.

Ihar Alinevich and Mikalai Dzyadok are Minsk activists of the anarchist movement, in solidarity with whom Babrusjk activists went to set the door of the local KGB branch on fire. Alinevich was sentenced to the longest term, 8 years, for participation in the rally near the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Belarus in 2009. He was also charged with participation in an attacking the Russian Embassy and prison in 2010. Ihar is an IT genius, he had been participating in development of the Russian-Belarusian satellite. He was detained in Moscow at request of the Belarusian KGB. Without any extradition, he was knocked down on the floor and transported to the Belarusian border, where he was passed to Belarusian colleagues. It is possible that he would not have been sentenced to 8 years in case he had agreed to an irresistible offer of the KGB: he was offered to work as a hacker for KGB men. Alinevich refused and was taken first to Navapolatsk penal colony, and after its dismissal to Vitsebsk penal colony. Behind the bars he has written a sophisticated and wise book “I’m going to Magadan”.

Mikalai Dzyadok, convicted with Alinevich, was to be released on March 3. He was detained on September 3, 2010 and sentenced to 3.5 years of deprivation of freedom. In 2012 his penalty was stiffened, and he was sent to the closed prison. But Mikalai was not released from prison: three months before the end of his term the court added him one more year of imprisonment, as he was “a malicious violator of regulations.”

Yury Rubtsou is a new political prisoner. First he was tried in an administrative case, for a T-shirt with the words: “Lukashenka, resign!” And then he called the judge “a rascal”. And in October 2014 Rubtsou was convicted of a criminal offense, “Insult of a judge,” and sentenced to 1.5 years in a correctional labour facility. He went on a hunger strike there. And the administration of the correctional labour facility quickly concocted accusation, “evasion from serving the sentence”. Very soon limitation of freedom was replaced by deprivation of freedom for Rubtsou. And it was to last 2 years, not a year and a half.

That is, everything is clear with these “crime figures and thugs” as Lukashenka called them at press-conferences. They were not subject to any amnesties, as they were considered persistent violators. And all of a sudden all of them were simply thrown out of prisons, a month and a half before the elections of Lukashenka.

Mikalai Statkevich explained his release easily: Lukashenka had run out of money, and he badly needs to dance minuet with the West, and at the same time to frighten Vladimir Putin a little, to make him more generous to his ally, otherwise the ally may run to the West. The money is out, that’s true, the annual devaluation of the Belarusian ruble was 70%. But to my mind, the relations of Lukashenka and Putin didn’t play the decisive role in the release of the political prisoners. Alyaksandr Lukashenka understands perfectly well that the situation in Russia is far from the situation 5 years ago, and it is hard to find billions of dollars of “fraternal” assistance easily. Even if Putin wanted, he would not be able to waste money wholesale for rescuing the dying Belarusian economy that is go downhill and artificial supporting the exchange rate of the Belarusian ruble, while his own ruble is going down the drain. So this gesture was most likely addressed to the West, not to the East.

The European Union met the release of the six political prisoners with enthusiasm. In the joint communique of the head of the EU diplomacy Federica Mogherini and Johannes Hahn, Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, it was said that the release of the political prisoners is a great progress in the relations of Minsk and Brussels: “Now we are expecting from the authorities of Belarus to lift all limitations in realization of civil and political rights of the released. The today’s release is an important progress in the efforts aimed at improvement of the relations between the EU and Belarus.”

But Alyaksandr Lukashenka has a feeble imagination. By releasing these six prisoners, he recognized the fact of existence of political prisoners. All these years at press-conferences Lukashenka kept saying: “What political prisoners do you mean? In our prisons we have criminals only.” And now, after he released people strictly in accordance with the list of the West, he recognized them as political prisoners.

Well, let him call them criminals and highway robbers. But they are back at home now, and the Saturday evening has become the happiest one for a great number of Belarusians – not only for their relatives and friends. “Lukashenka had not suspected himself, that he would set in motion such a mechanism of solidarity,” Ihar Alinevich said to me, when I called him to congratulate. He is right. I had an impression that I was calling my blood brother, though we had not ever met before. But Ihar was serving the term in the same corrective facility with my husband. And Ihar’s mother, Valyantsina Alinevich, was knitting sweaters as a present to my son. And I taught her how to equip oneself for a long meeting in a detention facility, as I was there before. I visited Alyaksandr Atroshchankau, who had been released much earlier, together with Maryna Adamovich, Mikalai Statkevich’s wife. When Natallia Radzina, editor-in-chief of charter97.org website, and me where arrested, Natallia’s mother and my mother recognized each other in the central department store as they bought the same water heaters. The mothers understood that they were buying the same things for cellmates. We all have become relatives over these five years, and the mechanism of solidarity really works. After the next wave of repression is going to be easier: we already know what to do and in which way it should be done.

Yes, the next wave of repression is to come, as dictators never turn into lovely persons. After release of hostages and receiving loans and investments, they squander away the money fast and take new hostages, to have somebody to trade in. This cycle could not be broken until the dictator quits.

And now, today, the six political prisoners are at home with their families. And it is the most important thing. Welcome home!

Iryna Khalip, “Novaya gazeta”