Palina Symbolises Resistance

She indicates repressions.

If you suddenly feel Lukashenka is ready to change, and the walls are about to crumble, remember Palina at once. She is an indicator.

To be honest, I almost took the bait myself. Everyone wants to hear the same thing. That's what we heard: an amnesty awaits; the "extremists" may be released; they aren't enemies of the people but have a different view of social development. We're fed up with blood-curdling cold weather. There must be a thaw after all. That's when all those vague hints of amnesty sound. And people around them swallow these rotten worms en masse and seriously discuss the release of political prisoners in the coming days. Some say we must insist upon the release all at once without any compromises. Others object, 'there are too many of them. It won't work that way anyway. Let's agree to a gradual release; at least let the women and children be released first. The disabled are on the list and then others follow. They are courageous people and are probably willing to wait a little longer for the sake of balance and dialogue, which will undoubtedly begin because the freeze is ending'.

Meanwhile, when many people mistook the lamp in the face in the NKVD's office for sunlight, Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk is thrown back into solitary confinement. She spent more than 50 days in solitary confinement in two and a half months. The women's colony for "repeat offenders" in the Rechytsa district is solitary confinement itself. The prisoners work in a peat briquette factory with the appropriate environmental conditions. In the summer, they are hunted by mosquitoes like in the taiga (prisoners are not allowed to use insect repellents). The cell where Palina has been held for almost two months is a damp stone bag of one and a half meters by three meters. One should either stand or sit on a narrow metal bench from six in the morning till ten in the evening. No walking, no writing, or even reading. It's easy to go crazy, but Palina hangs on. She was in solitary confinement five times in four months in the Homel penal colony. Then she was there before escorting to the detention center for a retrial. One should know an unbuttoned jacket is not a reason for the punishment but resistance. It's a desperate resistance of an unarmed person who walks tall.

"Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk is the reincarnation of Valeria Ilyinichna," Konstantin Borovoy, a close friend of Novodvorskaya, once wrote. "The Belarusian Joan of Arc," journalists often call her like that. Both names are wonderful, beautiful, worthy of comparison. But it's time to step away from them because Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk is already a symbol. A symbol not even of courage but of pure heroism. One may even wonder whether, for example, Russia has its own Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk. I'm afraid not. Maybe Iran, Myanmar, and Zimbabwe have. Russia does not. I hope they will. No change is possible without people like Palina.

I couldn't understand why human rights activists would not recognize her as a political prisoner. She has been a member of the resistance for years. She collected the necessary number of signatures for registration as a candidate for "deputy" in Brest in a couple of days in 2019. It's direct evidence of respect and authority from fellow countrymen in her hometown. She rushed like a panther to protect her children when law enforcers in balaclavas kicked down the door. The strange thing is that all those who had been charged under the same articles as Palina were recognized as political prisoners at once. They recognized it only after the verdict. It has no logical explanation. Maybe there is a metaphysical one: the level of Palina's heroism is so high that it is scary to even mess with her. Geiger counter breaks down next to her. So they chose to keep their distance. It's the only way to explain it.

Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk is now in solitary confinement. She is unlikely to leave it in ten days. When we are drinking coffee in front of a computer screen, she sits on an iron bench in a cell for a second year. She has no letters, no parcels, no walks, no books, no visits from relatives. If anyone thinks that Lukashenka announced liberalization, remember what is happening to Palina now. And don't believe him.

Iryna Khalip, specially for Charter97.org

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