‘The Life Of Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk Is In Danger, She Needs To Be Rescued!’

Dialogue of Natallia Radzina, the Editor-in-Chief of Charter97.org and the famous author Linor Goralik.

Political prisoner, activist of the European Belarus Civil Campaign Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk was transferred to pre-trial detention center No 1 on Valadarski Street in Minsk.

She will stay at the “Valadarka” for several days before being transferred to the Navinki Republican Mental Health Center. There, Palina will undergo a compulsory examination.

Prominent author Linor Goralik spoke with Natallia Radzina, the Editor-in-Chief of the Charter97.org website about the sufferings of Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk in Lukashenka's dungeons.

LINOR GORALIK: It seems to me that people know much less about Palina than they need to know. Could you please describe Palina and show us the best of her?

NATALLIA RADZINA: Palina is an activist of the Belarusian opposition who has been fighting the Lukashenka regime since she was 19, since 1994. She is the coordinator of the European Belarus office in the city of Brest. Palina has been imprisoned since January 3, 2021 and is an example of courage and steadfastness for many, because she is still fighting the Lukashenka regime even in prison, in the most difficult and, it seems unbearable conditions.

There is a lot of love in Polina. She is the mother of two children whom she loves really madly. She is a wife. But in addition to this, she always had a heightened sense of love for the Motherland. She knew the history of Belarus very well, which is a rare thing for our country after 200 years of Russification with the destruction of everything national. Palina has a very deep sense of self-esteem. She always fought also to remain human and not let the system break her. At the same time, she calls on all Belarusians to defend their self-esteem and their rights in the same way and by her own example. I think she dedicated her entire life to this.

GORALIK: What is Palina's political platform? If it were possible to make Belarus the way Palina wants to see it, what would have to happen?

RADZINA: I think that Palina sees Belarus as an unconditionally European national democratic state, a member of the EU and NATO. Palina has always opposed any integration of Belarus with Russia, she has participated in many protests in connection with integration projects that Lukashenka supported largely, and she has always defended the independence of our country.

GORALIK: What is happening with Polina now?

RADZINA: They are transferring Palina from penal colony No 24 near the city of Rechytsa to a psychiatric hospital in Navinki near Minsk. A transportation process in Belarusian conditions can last several weeks. Despite the fact that Belarus is a rather small country, a person can be transported from point A to point B in prison trucks and trains for months. This is also torture that political prisoners are subjected to when they want to put pressure on them. On the way, a person is thrown into prisons, colonies, pre-trial detention centers, temporary detention centers and police departments. You can travel around almost the whole of Belarus in a circle before you arrive at your destination. We do not know when Palina will come to her destination.

There are great fears that they are likely to use the methods of punitive psychiatry against Palina. It is easy to imagine that things are the same as they were in the Soviet Union to understand what I am talking about. We all read the memoirs of Natalia Gorbanevskaya and Valeria Novodvorskaya. I am afraid that they will use these methods against Palina. She underwent a forensic medical examination, including a psychiatric examination, during the investigation - and now, three years later, she is again sent to the so-called psychiatric hospital. It is also a way to put pressure on her, because the day before she renounced Belarusian citizenship. It was a move of desperation and protest on her part, a sign that she refuses to obey the orders and prison rules set by the Kremlin-backed Lukashenka occupation regime.

GORALIK: Were any other similar precedents in history?

RADZINA: Yes. In 1977, the Ukrainian dissident writer Geliy Snegirev renounced Soviet citizenship in prison.

A year and a half later, he died in the there, in prison, because of torture, because he went on hunger strikes, because of force-feeding. We are very afraid for Palina's life.

GORALIK: What is happening with Palina's family now?

RADZINA: Palina's husband, Andrei Sharenda, was under house arrest. He was pursued, but he managed to escape. When Palina was arrested, he was able to illegally leave the territory of Belarus and take the children out of there. Now he lives with his children in Lithuania, where he received the status of a political refugee, and continues to fight for his wife from there, knocking on all doors, telling about her and demanding a serious international reaction. If he had stayed in the country, then he would have gone to prison, just like Palina, would have come under real arrest, and the children would have been taken from them. Fortunately, Palina's children are now abroad. They were used to blackmail Palina, but she does not give in to blackmail, and this causes great respect because it is very important not to be afraid of the regime and not succumb to constant blackmail. Unfortunately, many refugees from Belarus today are blackmailed by the confiscation of property in the country. Many fell silent. Palina, who is in prison and separated from her children, does not give in to blackmail. It seems to me personally that it is a shame to be afraid while abroad when a person in prison is not afraid. In this regard, Palina is probably the most heroic Belarusian political prisoner.

GORALIK: According to your estimates, how many political prisoners are there in Belarus now?

RADZINA: Arrests did not stop in 2020 and 2021. Arrests continue every day. Moreover, they have intensified since the beginning of the war, and today the number of political prisoners in Belarus is difficult to estimate. The Viasna Human Rights Center tells about 1,500 political prisoners, but I argue that they have no right to operate with this figure, because in reality there are much more political prisoners in our country, from 8,000 to 10,000 people. Some people refuse to tell human rights activists that their relatives are in prison - and therefore we cannot operate with any exact figures - especially since the authorities use non-political but criminal rules, accusing people of extremism, terrorism, murder, drug distribution. Human rights activists are not able to find out whether the article is politically motivated, although initially it is clear that it is. Alas, international human rights activists have criteria that have long been impossible to apply either in Belarus or in Russia. When the courts are closed and the whole system is so false and so monstrous that it is impossible to believe any data, it is impossible to calculate the numbers.

GORALIK: We know that political prisoners are really dying in Belarusian prisons.

RADZINA: Yes, and this is another reason why we fear for Palina's life. People are literally being killed in Belarusian prisons. We know about such deaths. A few months ago, a blogger from the city of Pinsk, Mikalai Klimovich, died in prison. They sentenced him knowing that he has heart disability: he was sent to prison despite his heart issues, and he died just a month later. A few weeks ago it became known that the Belarusian poet Dzmitry Sarokin died in the building of the Lida Department of Internal Affairs (Hrodna region). We don't even have a chance to find out how it happened. Two years earlier, opposition activist Vitold Ashurak was killed in prison, he was simply beaten to death by the prison guards. When his body was brought home, the mother saw an absolutely tormented son, who was not even fifty years old. Vitold had excellent health, he went in for sports. We understand that there are no longer any limits and no laws for them. No one is responsible for the lives of political prisoners, they are simply killed. There is a feeling that Lukashenka personally gave an order to break people to the end. Either he feels his near end, or he is suffocated by anger that he cannot break people who hate him and do not accept his regime.

GORALIK: Does he think it will intimidate others?

RADZINA: Of course, this is also an attempt to intimidate others. In one way or another, but now the situation with political prisoners has worsened.

Even the real leader of the opposition (and not the leader in exile), I'm talking about Mikalai Statkevich, spent more than 11 years in prisons during the years of Lukashenka's rule. He was last arrested in May 2020, on the eve of the presidential elections, because the authorities were very afraid of him. I think if Mikalai Statkevich had been free during the revolutionary events of August 2020, we would have already forgotten who Lukashenka is. Statkevich could really lead people to victory. I believe that, in fact, the protests were betrayed, apparently and deliberately. So, Mikalai Statkevich has been kept in solitary confinement and constantly placed in a ShIZO, a punishment cell, (through which, by the way, Palina also passed) since May 2020, that is, for three years already!

RADZINA: Could you please tell us, what does it mean?

GORALIK: ShIZO is a punishment cell. It is a place where prisoners go crazy. This is a stone bag, very cramped, there are terrible living conditions, cold, hunger. There are very severe conditions. Palina spent more than two hundred days out of ten months in a punishment cell, that is, a forty-eight-year-old woman with chronic diseases spent more than 6 months out of 10 in a punishment cell. In other words, they are killing her willfully. Moreover, she was placed in penal colony No 24 near Rechytsa, which is generally considered one of the worst colonies in Belarus. This is a colony for recidivist women. In addition, she is prohibited from delivering medicines that are vital to her. Please see: there is a targeted extermination of political prisoners. They try to break the strongest, but I think that they will not succeed. Both Polina and Mikalai Statkevich are hardened fighters, I hope that they will survive in this situation. But of course we need to shout about them from everywhere, and shout as loud as possible.

GORALIK: What can be done to help Palina?

RADZINA: It’s necessary to talk about her, to write about her. All people who have any communication channels need to talk and write about Palina. Sure, it’s also necessary to demand a tough reaction from the West. Because, unfortunately, Belarusian political prisoners today, in fact, are forgotten. Europe forgot about them, the United States forgot, they are not given due attention against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine. The topic of Belarusian political prisoners has been hidden away in a dark corner. No new economic sanctions have been imposed on the Lukashenka regime for more than a year. That is why the situation with political prisoners in Belarus is deteriorating. I was in Ukraine just recently and, among other things, I asked: “Why are the sanctions against the regimes of Lukashenka and Putin not synchronized? After all, in fact, these are two co-aggressors, two accomplices in this war.” I was told that our Western partners consider it unnecessary to anger Lukashenka once again because otherwise he will enter the war even more actively. There are no sanctions for more than a year, we see that people are being killed in prisons, and now nuclear missiles are being brought to Belarus. That is the huge success of Western diplomacy. Nuclear missiles can be launched both against Ukraine and against Europe from Belarus. I see no other actual point in deploying these missiles in Belarus. What are the possible sanctions? In my opinion, it is necessary to impose a trade embargo and a ban on the transit of goods through the territory of Belarus in order to release people from prisons. And then, I hope, in a month all political prisoners will be released, because this will really hit the regime. I am glad that now, literally the other day, the International Labor Conference voted for the application of Article 33 of the ILO Constitution in the case of Belarus, because in fact this is the second case in the last 100 years. For the first time this article was applied to Myanmar, and now, finally, it has been applied to Belarus. We have been fighting for the application of this article since 2003. Less than twenty years later, it is finally applied. The ILO will now recommend national governments impose tougher economic sanctions against the Lukashenka regime, and ILO member states will be required to comply with these recommendations.

GORALIK: Is it possible to do something for Palina personally?

RADZINA: She is in complete isolation, they don’t hand letters to her, they don’t allow her parcels, they don’t even give her medicines. All each of us can do, those who are abroad, is take part in protests. To come to the buildings of governments, parliaments, to the buildings of the Foreign Ministries of the states of your actual residence and demand to stop the murder of Palina in prison, as well as the murder of other political prisoners. All the same, continue to write letters of solidarity to prisoners of conscience, help the families of political prisoners, apply to human rights activists in the countries, focusing their attention on the situation in Belarus. Don't be silent. Don't step back. Act and fight for our heroes.