TALLINN, Estonia — Antanina Kanavalava says her 4 years in a Belarusian penal colony as a political prisoner had been stuffed with a concern and anguish that also haunts her.
She almost misplaced parental rights to her two younger youngsters when she was initially arrested. Her eyesight deteriorated from stitching navy uniforms in a dimly lit room. Denied entry to even fundamental wants like female hygiene merchandise, she used rags or no matter she might discover amid unsanitary situations.
“Ladies in jail undergo hell and might’t even complain to anybody,” Kanavalava, 37, informed The Related Press after her launch in December. “The pinnacle of the jail informed me straight out that individuals like me needs to be put towards the wall and shot.”
Belarus has nearly 1,200 political prisoners. Whereas all endure harsh situations like unheated cells, isolation and poor vitamin and well being care, human rights officers say the 178 girls behind bars are notably weak.
Pavel Sapelka, a lawyer with the Viasna human rights middle, says girls are sometimes singled out for abuse and humiliation, threatened with dropping their youngsters, and having medical issues ignored.
Sapelka cited the case of Hanna Kandratsenka, 30, who died of cervical most cancers in February, months after getting her freedom. She was identified in jail however denied early launch for remedy, he stated.
Unbiased consultants appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council describe “appalling” situations for girls in Belarusian prisons, with “a blatant lack of accountability for the ailing remedy.”
Authoritarian President Lukashenko has ruled Belarus for over three a long time, residing as much as his nickname of “Europe’s final dictator” by silencing dissent and lengthening his rule by means of elections the West calls neither free nor honest. A harsh crackdown adopted a disputed 2020 vote, when lots of of hundreds took to the streets. Over 65,000 individuals had been arrested, hundreds had been crushed by police and lots of of impartial media retailers and nongovernmental organizations had been closed and outlawed.
Opposition figures are both imprisoned or have fled overseas. Amongst these behind bars is Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, the founding father of Viasna, and Maria Kolesnikova, an opposition leader. Though Lukashenko has freed over 300 political prisoners within the final yr, nonetheless others are arrested in a revolving door of repression.
U.S. President Donald Trump stated final week on social media that he spoke with Lukashenko and inspired him to launch extra. On Friday, Lukashenko responded: “Take them, carry them over there.”
Of the cruel situations, Lukashenko says Belarus treats inmates “usually,” including that “jail will not be a resort.”
The federal government has refused to permit worldwide screens and impartial observers into the prisons.
Kanavalava was a confidant of opposition chief Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who challenged Lukashenko within the 2020 election however later fled the nation amid the next protests.
Along with her husband additionally jailed, Kanavalava was convicted of “collaborating in mass riots” and sentenced to five 1/2 years. Authorities threatened to ship her 6-year-old son, Ivan, and 4-year-old daughter, Nasta, to an orphanage initially of her sentence.
“For a mom to not see her youngsters for 4 years is actual torture,” she informed AP. “The authorities know this and rub salt into this maternal wound day by day, demanding I signal confessions and cooperate.”
The U.N. consultants stated feminine prisoners in Belarus had been topic to “arbitrary punishment, together with solitary confinement and incommunicado detention with out contact with their youngsters.”
Kanavalava likened it to being a “hostage,” saying she was compelled to cooperate with authorities as a result of “I wished to outlive for the sake of my youngsters.” Their grandmother in the end took them to Warsaw, the place they had been reunited with their mom following her pardon and early launch in January,
Former political prisoner Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk, 50, spent greater than 4 years behind bars in a number of detention facilities and penal colonies, serving 270 days in solitary confinement.
Held in a KGB detention middle with no scorching water, she used heat tea that she was served to clean herself, Sharenda-Panasiuk stated, describing unsanitary situations the place diseases “turn out to be power because of the fixed chilly.”
“The authorities intentionally exploit girls’s vulnerabilities to humiliate them and create insufferable situations,” she added.
The U.N. consultants expressed specific concern for Viktoryia Kulsha, who was initially sentenced to 2 1/2 years for moderating a Telegram messaging channel that urged drivers to dam streets in the course of the 2020 protests. 4 extra years had been tacked on for allegedly disobeying jail officers.
Human rights teams say the 43-year-old has gone on at the very least six starvation strikes protesting abuses in Penal Colony No. 24 in Zarechcha. The U.N. consultants stated in Might her situation “has been life-threatening for a while now.”
Sharenda-Panasiuk, who was in the identical penal colony, stated she noticed a guard in 2023 punch Kulsha within the again, inflicting her to fall. The identical guard later choked her by grabbing her from behind, she added.
“Viktoria slit her veins and went on starvation strikes in protest towards the tyranny of the jail authorities and this slaughterhouse, however it saved getting worse and they’re driving her to the brink,” Sharenda-Panasiuk stated. “Her diseases have worsened. … She has issues together with her breasts, with the thyroid gland.”
Circumstances in Penal Colony No. 24 are among the many harshest, she stated, describing stints in solitary confinement as torture. Ladies typically work 12–14 hours a day, together with Sundays, to satisfy quotas. They’re below 24-hour surveillance, should not allowed walks outdoors, should put on the identical garments always and infrequently don’t have any alternative to wash.
Strip searches are performed by each female and male workers, Sharenda-Panasiuk stated, and “throughout a switch from place to put, it was primarily males who searched me.”
Natallia Dulina was arrested in 2022, convicted of extremism — a typical cost for dissidents — and sentenced to three 1/2 years. She was pardoned and launched in June with 13 different political prisoners, and brought to neighboring Lithuania following a go to to Minsk by U.S. particular envoy Keith Kellogg.
The 60-year-old Italian instructor at Minsk State Linguistic College described notably harsh remedy at Penal Colony No. 4, together with the set up of a “disgrace cage” within the courtyard. Ladies are compelled to face within the cage for hours, in all climate, to punish them for disciplinary violations, she stated.
No such cages exist in males’s penal colonies, Sapelka stated, and “the authorities will give you new methods to abuse girls specifically.”
U.N. consultants referred to as this punishment “inhuman and degrading.”
“I made a decision that if somebody ever tries to place me on this cage, I merely is not going to go there — I’ll go straight into solitary confinement,” Dulina stated in an interview from Vilnius.
She described arbitrary punishment, including she as soon as misplaced visitation rights for feeding bread to a pigeon. Regardless of the cruel situations, she stated she refused to confess guilt or request a pardon.
Kanavalava, who lives in Warsaw together with her household, admits that “jail will not be over but” for her as a result of her husband nonetheless has almost two years left on his sentence.
Neither is the anxiousness. She stated “the concern of dropping my very own youngsters haunts me even in my desires.”
“It’s unattainable to get used to the tyranny of the Belarusian authorities, however it’s even more durable to elucidate to youngsters and to your self the excessive worth that Belarusians pay for his or her want to be free,” Kanavalava stated.
