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Rzeczpospolita: Belarusian Regime Beats Opposition Families

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Rzeczpospolita: Belarusian Regime Beats Opposition Families
Sharenda Family

Polina Sharenda-Panasiuk, a mother of two minor children, is in prison.

The Sharenda family from Brest is well known in the democratic movement in Belarus. Andrei and Palina have supported the opposition movement in the city for years and have often been at the forefront of protests that have continued in Belarus since August, writes the leading Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita (translated by Charter97.org).

Palina - the owner of the "Pole's card" - teaches Polish in Brest. Andrei works part-time in Poland, was an administrator in one of the hotels.

Andrei Sharenda was arrested at the end of last year. While he was behind bars, the security forces broke down the door in his apartment, handcuffed his wife in front of his four-year-old son, and also removed the white-red-white flag from the balcony. Social workers also came to the house, but fortunately, they were outstripped by their grandparents.

- They took little Stasik. He is with his 11-year-old brother, who has not seen his mother's arrest.

"I'm afraid for the children"

Andrei was released on January 4, but two days later, a new sentence was passed. He was sentenced to 15 more days in prison for participating in an "illegal protest." He went to court, took the children away from relatives, and is fighting for his arrested wife, who faces several years in prison for "resisting" a police officer.

- There are no independent judges in Belarus; I don't trust them. Now it is only a matter of time before they detain me. This is revenge for our activities; the security forces were ordered to calm us down, - Andrei Sharenda says. - They probably wanted to take away the children during the search. I worry about them because if I go to jail, grandparents, the elderly may not be able to cope with the pressure from the guardianship authorities, he adds.

Palina had already been summoned to a meeting of the Brest commission on minors' affairs, where children's future was discussed. Then dozens of city residents came to support the woman. Brest residents even tried to enter the building to protect the family.

- We are not the only family targeted by the regime,- he emphasizes.

Punishment for parents

In Belarus, even mothers with many children are imprisoned for political reasons. One of them is 44-year-old Alena Maushuk from Pinsk. She was arrested on the night of August 10, the day after electoral fraud in Belarus, when protests broke out in many cities.

Only a few days later, relatives learned that the beaten, naked, and barefoot woman had been thrown into the cell. She was accused of participating in riots, for which she faces up to several years in prison.

She is the mother of three daughters, including two minors. In September, the authorities took ten-year-old Anhelina from her husband (she was from her first marriage) and sent her to an orphanage. The youngest, five-year-old Karyna, is waiting with her father for her mother and sister to return today.

- We often receive reports that the guardianship and guardianship authorities threaten families to take their children. Of course, the point is not that children live in poor conditions, but political repression. Children are punished for their protesting parents, but there are also situations where minors protest, and then the guardianship authorities come to the fathers and mothers. They accuse them of the "improper" upbringing of their children, - a human rights activist Valiantsin Stefanovich says.

Television defended

- It all started with our story; before that, the authorities were not interested in political prisoners' children. At some point, they came up with the idea that they could blackmail with children, - the famous Belarusian journalist Iryna Khalip says. She was detained together with her husband Andrei Sannikau on the night of December 19-20, 2010, immediately after the closing of polling stations.

Andrei Sannikau was one of the leading presidential candidates from the democratic opposition. The regime rigged the elections, and there was a big protest in Minsk, which the authorities brutally suppressed. After Andrei Sannikau and Iryna Khalip were arrested by the KGB, the authorities tried to take their three-year-old son Danik.

- The teachers have already arrived at the kindergarten, accompanied by the police, my mother went there, but everything was done to prevent her from getting to the child. Fortunately, reporters from the Russian TV channel NTV arrived at the same time. When the police and security officials saw the camera, they suddenly changed their minds. The grandmother was allowed to take her grandson, - recalls Iryna Khalip.

Iryna spent more than a month in the KGB pre-trial detention center, and her husband spent more than a year and a half in prison. When Andrei Sannikau was released, he was forced to go abroad. He now lives in Warsaw.

- We were informed that an attack was planned on my husband. I stayed with my son in Minsk. Since then, we have been meeting my husband on our son's vacation. I am constantly threatened, but I have been participating in the resistance movement for twenty years, and I am not afraid of anything, - adds Iryna Khalip.

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