Belarusian Female Prison Is Pure Hell

Political prisoners go through real torture.

The well-known ex-political prisoner Natallia Hersche writes in an article for the Charter97.org website about the inhuman conditions in which female political prisoners are kept in Belarusian prisons.

In particular, she writes about Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk, the activist of the European Belarus Civil Campaign, who, after 40 days of detention in a punishment cell, was transferred to the cell-type premises for six months:

— I learned about Palina from my brother and then read in the press. I was impressed by the resilience of her unbending character. I understand that she deliberately doomed herself to the most difficult and unsafe path, cause I had personal experience of being there.

The inhuman conditions of detention, which seemed impossible to imagine in our time, are unbearable for men, and for women it is a pure hell.

I am sure that she was tortured with cold in the punishment cell and deprived of sleep. There, first of all, your feet get cold, and you try to warm up somehow: you imitate running on the spot, kicking your feet with all your might on the floor, because you don’t feel them because of the cold ... Then you fall on a cold bunk bed (there is no mattress in the punishment cell), you fall asleep for 15-20 minutes, not more, because it's impossible.

The cold makes itself felt again, you get up and 'run' again. A jailer comes to the door, looks into the peephole and moves on.

I asked myself: where is their humanity? That's torture! Real torture! However, they're all in it together. They are afraid of losing their "bread and butter", therefore, they are subjects in the dictator's team, who torment us calmly. They are ready to kill us silently... for "bread and butter"!

During my stay in Zhodzina prison, Katia Andreyeva was brought to our cell (the Belsat journalist sentenced to a total of ten years in prison - ed.). I was outraged that the jailers forced her to carry her mattress with a blanket and a pillow wrapped in it in one hand, and to put the other hand with a bag of other things behind her back. A few days later, she still felt pain in her hand. What qualities should a man who demands this from a woman have? They are sadists. I have no other word for them.

I spent a couple of weeks together with Viktoria Kulsha (a political prisoner, sentenced to 3 years and 6 months in a penal colony - ed.) in "Valadarka" (Pretrial Detention Center No1 on Valadarski Street in Minsk). The cell was designed for six people. It was so cramped in there that you could only squeeze sideways between the tiers of the bed. What kind of health maintenance can we talk about if you are practically motionless in such a cell for several months, hourly walks practically do not change the situation! Vika then was very worried about her daughter.

I was transferred to the opposite cell after the trial. When I went on a hunger strike because I was deprived of correspondence, Vika and Volha Klaskouskaia (a political prisoner sentenced to 2 years and six months in a colony - ed.), who came after I left the cell, supported me.

I met Volha Klaskouskaia during my transfer to Homiel. She said that she was standing ankle-deep in the water while in the "Valadarka's" punishment cell. Since then, her health has deteriorated.

We were in different colony squads, but we worked on the same shift. We had opportunities to talk on short breaks and when arraying squads at the end of work. The jailers were ordered not to allow this to happen. They were running to us saying "we are not supposed to communicate". We were laughing at them, telling them to show regulations about it and ignoring them and continuing to talk.

Volha was the first to go to the punishment cell for refusing to sew a dictatorial uniform. Somewhere on the 20-25th day, they brought me. We supported each other with songs. Volha later said that she cried when I sang Kupalinka. The same thing happened to me when I listened to her singing. Volha speaks Belarusian very well and she communicated with the administration only in it. Some of them even admired it.

When I was transferred from Gomel to Mogilev, I, being in the corridor of the punishment cell, said goodbye to Volha loudly, she replied with the words: "Long Live Belarus!" Andrei Valiantsinavich Siutsou, the head of the Security Department of the Homel colony, was standing next to me. Oh, a disgusting mister! He was so little and very foul. He immediately began to threaten Volha with the extension of the punishment cell detention.

I'm pretty sure he kept his word. Then I was reproaching myself that I had not warned her not to answer... I actually know what she thinks.

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