Come And Get It!

They can't get it, so they shit as best they can.

All the tricks that the regime tries to harass Belarusians abroad and spoil their lives ("if I don't catch up with you, at least I'll warm up") were not invented now. To be more exact, now they have acquired a mass character and are aimed at those who had time to leave and whom the naughty hands of the KGB and GUBOPiK can't reach anymore. But spoiling life with all sorts of mischief is not an innovation at all, it is a credo. It's just that before there were few Belarusians in exile, so the main target were those inside.

In 2012, lawyer Marina Kovalevskaya, who defended political prisoners and was not afraid to meet with Western diplomats and officials, could not leave Belarus. Having gathered for a weekend in Vilnius with her family, Marina found out at the border that she was forbidden to leave Belarus, as she was evading conscription in the army. She had to return to Minsk and go to the military enlistment office, where the officers laughed for a long time after hearing her story. Then the ban was lifted just as suddenly. But the family weekend with a young son, who was looking forward to the trip, was spoiled for good. And Marina soon left for good. She was lucky: she managed to get there before the lawyers, defending political prisoners, started to be jailed en masse.

The chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists Janna Litvina was not released at the same time under the pretext that she was allegedly on the list of debtors. Zhanna did not get an answer to the question, to whom and what she owed, in any of the official offices. And Viktor Ivashkevich was told that he would not be released from Belarus until he repented on the Charter's website for calling for a boycott of Belarusian oil products. So the regime acted stupidly even then, but in some places ingeniously. And the law enforcers probably thought they were acting wittily and creatively. To disrupt an important trip or just a family weekend, to make you run around in offices where no one can understand who you are and why you came, to force you to change plans that were made long ago - it's not fatal, and it's not a prison sentence, but it's so mean that it makes your jaw drop. This is their way of life and their way of acting - to shit as they know how.

Political emigrants could be counted on their fingers at that time, so the nastiness was aimed at journalists, politicians, human rights activists inside the country. After the beginning of the Great Terror, a huge number of active Belarusians found themselves in emigration. All of them not only participated in protests, but also spoke and wrote openly, so they became personal enemies of the regime as a whole and its individual representatives. But to reach out to them, the hands were already short. Then they started to crap on emigrants, showing marvels of ingenuity. First, Lukashenko canceled all consular services: and your passport will expire soon, and what will you do then? Have you eaten? Let's go back, here you will have both a passport and state food for many years ahead.

Yes, it was a nasty thing. But the crowds of repentant for some reason did not appear at the Belarusian border: migration outside Belarus began. Those who lived in countries that do not issue travel documents to foreigners, began to move to countries where they do. Those who had hoped to stay on a work visa or temporary residence permit, nevertheless applied for protection and became refugees.

Then the regime began to cancel the passports of former political prisoners, whom it had expelled from the country. Here the logic is clear: under pressure from the United States, some political prisoners had to be removed from prisons. And now they will have an easy and pleasant life? No, your passports are now invalid! Yes, also a rare tragedy. But surmountable. Belarusians are vigilant people. And if those who are in the country, before going anywhere, they always go to the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to check whether they have been added to the list of those who can't go anywhere, the Belarusians in exile have already checked their passports three times. And those, who were deprived of their passports, started to apply for the same foreigner's documents. Yes, the European bureaucracy is able to drive people crazy. But it's all about the bureaucracy as such, not about the fact that the state wants to shit on a particular person as much as possible.

And on Wednesday, "Mediazona" wrote about the large-scale replenishment of the Russian federal search database with Belarusians. Now there are about six thousand citizens of our country there. And very many people have found themselves in this database. Including me. Only here you can relax. First of all, none of the Belarusians in exile will definitely go to Russia. Secondly, Natalya Radina has been on that wanted list, in my opinion, since the times when there was no "Mediazona" yet. And her life has not been affected in any way by the wanted card. So we can spit on the federal manhunt from a high tower and go drink coffee. Let them look. Maybe they will find something useful.

Irina Khalip, especially for Charter97.org.

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