"Sitting better in Russia"

The blogger compared the conditions of detention in Russian and Belarusian pre -trial detention centers

The Belarusian blogger Eduard Palpyk was less than a year and a half through the accusation of extremism, five prisons and two temporary detentional insulators in Russia and Belarusian, a psychiatric hospital, an escape, five -month emigration to Ukraine, extradition, a closed court and a sentence. At the end of October, he was found guilty of extremism, sentenced to a year and nine months of home “chemistry” (a slight restriction of freedom) and freed from custody.

Two years ago, Edward created the site 1863x.com. He published his own political texts under the pseudonym John Silver. This is the case when anonymity was a concept: no one, even close friends, knew that Eduard Palwis - this was John Silver. Last May, he was arrested on charges of extremism and sent to a psychiatric examination. After a month, in the Durke, Palchs was released on a recognizance not to leave. He fled to Ukraine. And in February he was arrested on the Ukrainian-Russian border and extradited after three months in a pre-trial detention center.

By the way, even after the initiation of a criminal case, the psychiatric hospital and the flight of the Palpyk did not reveal. He told on his website what happened, and again signed John Silver. Then he disappeared from the network, and the site stopped updated. And in the spring, his real name and photography from the Bryansk pre -trial detention center suddenly appeared on the “satellite and pogrom” along with a bunch of fables. As it turned out, it was these fables of Edward for three months who “stuck” the Russian Feesbashniki for three months. How all this happened and where it is better to sit in prison - in Russia or in Belarus - Palpassy told Novaya Gazeta.

-When it became known that you were arrested when crossing the Ukrainian-Russian border, no one understood anything. On social networks they asked: why did he take care of Russia if he escaped from under the subscription and was on the wanted list? It was even assumed that you were lured with the help of a special operation.

- Oddly enough, the version about luring is close to the truth. Unfortunately, I still can’t tell everything. I myself need to clarify something. Conduct your own investigation. But people were really sent to me. I could not imagine that this is a setup, for one simple reason: who am I to spend resources on me? A blogger that a narrow layer of Belarusians reads. In the same way, at first I could not believe that in Belarus they seriously initiate a criminal case for the blog. And he had no idea what it would result in. I never considered myself an “important bird” and did not suffer from paranoia that they were following me. But then it turned out that there really was operational development, they followed me.

-And yet, why did you go to Russia?

- I wanted to return to Belarus. I left for Ukraine in September 2015, just shortly before the next “presidential election”, as Lukashenko calls it. At that time, all political prisoners were freed, and, on the contrary, I was arrested. I remembered what happened after the previous elections, and thought that, most likely, things were being prepared against the next party of the Politicals. And the courts will begin precisely after the elections. I did not want to sit and wait for the trial, so I left.

But since there were no new repressions, and the West froze the sanctions against Lukashenko for four months - until February 2016 - I decided that it could be returned, now they will hardly be imprisoned. And it is better to do this in February, before they discuss the issue of canceling or extending sanctions in the European Union. I wanted to use the political moment. And he fell into a trap: they promised me very important information, a meeting with people whom I really would like to meet, and unhindered travel to Belarus. I really wanted to return to Minsk, without attracting attention, to see my relatives and go to “give up”. He hoped that they would not be imprisoned.

- How did you be arrested in Russia?

- A group of people in civilian clothes came on the border, they said: “Come with us, you have not paid taxes on the territory of the Russian Federation.” Since in Russia I was a total of five hours, when I went to Ukraine through Smolensk and Bryansk, I immediately understood everything. We went to the station at the local police station, they pierced the passport there - and that’s it. They tried to “break” me there, in the station mental. But I accepted the countermeasures - as far as my possibilities - and as a result I hung in the Bryansk pre -trial detention center for three months.

- What kind of countermeasures?

- I began to tell them that the site is not mine, that there were Belarusian special services behind him, and I am one of the KGB agents, and in general my task was to meet with the Belarusian opposition and follow them. I scolded Belarusian independent sites, used the rhetoric of those who wrote my dirty tricks on the site. Then, psychologists, polygraphologists, operatives began to be in jail, and began to recruit me as a Belarusian Kagabashnik. The polygraph check lasted three days for eight hours in a row, and I said that it was not connected with any special service, except for the Belarusian. In general, such a circus began that I even began to try to find out their plans for Belarus and Ukraine, but of course they quickly understood everything.

- Didn't they offer money?

- It didn’t get to that: I was bitten earlier.

- And what happened after the Feesbashniki realized that you were not a KGB agent and there would be no sense in you?

- Then they began to put pressure on me so that I admit: yes, this is my site. They promised a conditional term. They said: you admit, and we are here in Russia, we will give you two years conditionally, and at home you will be imprisoned for five years, we go to trial, it turns out more profitable.

-And what is your benefit, in your opinion? You were on the interstate wanted list, where it was easier to extradite you quickly and not waste time.

- As for their profit, I can only assume. Back in 2014, when Belarus did not recognize all these “DPR-LNR”, the search for the Belarusian “Bandera”, fascists, punishers began as an answer. I carefully read all these sites that under the “roof” of the FSB. Perhaps they just wanted to make such a product for domestic consumption: here, they say, in Belarus there are also the same as crests, traitors and Bandera. Perhaps you did not notice, but the information war, albeit sluggish, but goes. When I was sitting in the Bryansk pre-trial detention center and watched Ren TV, there Lukashenko sneezed with might and main as a traitor, who also allowed embroidery.

- And how did Russian cellmates treat you? You were kept in a pre -trial detention center as an extremist and Russophobe.

- You know, when my cellmates in Bryansk began to tell what they were thinking about today's Russia, I understood that even on my site I would not publish this. And I also watched the mood change. At the beginning of the year, when I was in Russian prison, Türkiye and Syria were the main topic in television. And imagine, sits a prisoner, eats a balland with a chicken under the news and says: “Well done, Vova, you are cool!” And after a couple of months, the chicken from Balanda disappeared. But in the news - continuous humanitarian convoys to Syria. You would hear how rhetoric and vocabulary changed: “Oh, you ... are you chasing a ghost in Syria, and you have to starve your own?”

- If you compare the prisons of Russia and Belarus, where is it better to sit?

- It is better to sit in Russia. After the comparison of the Smolensk and Bryansk pre -trial detention center with the Minsk, Vitebsk and Zhodinsky I can say that the internal routine rules are more observed in Russian prisons. There, in every prison there are forms for contacting the ECHR, there members of the PMC go in prisons and you can complain about the conditions of detention. In Belarus, no one except the supervisory prosecutor once a month goes to prison. Belarusians cannot contact any ECHR, because Belarus has not been accepted into the Council of Europe. And even in Belarus, the attitude towards prisoners is completely cattle. Especially in a pre -trial detention center in Zhodino. If the prisoners who are sitting in Russian pre -trial detention centers and write complaints about the conditions of detention, they were in the Belarusian pre -trial detention center, they would decide that they were in hell, and not in prison.

But they feed in the Belarusian pre -trial detention center better than in Russian. I came across both fish in the sauce and potatoes with meat. And in Bryansk - rotten boiled cabbage with chicken and bones. But there are paid dinners. For money, you can order chicken-grille, pancakes, fried potatoes. Even in Russian pre -trials, caring is better than in Belarusian. In Bryansk, you could buy anything - there would be money. In Belarus, caring includes only some products and personal hygiene items.