"Die, just not on my shift!"

How in Belarusian prisons are mocking political prisoners

Two Belarusian political prisoners - Maria Kolesnikova and Nikolai Statkevich - were in the last days in a hospital bed in an information vacuum. Kolesnikov, sentenced to 11 years in prison, was brought from the correctional colony No. 4 to the city hospital Gomel and urgently operated on on November 28. Nikolai Statkevich, sentenced to 14 years in prison, was in a prison hospital with pneumonia after the next Covid.

Neither Lawyers are allowed to either Statkevich or Kolesnikova. The diagnosis of Kolesnikova was not even reported to her father, who came to the hospital. The diagnosis of Statkevich was able to find out precisely due to the fact that the lawyer was not allowed to go to him: the administration of colony No. 13 in deep referred to the concern for his health and motivated the refusal of post -like pneumonia. Statkevich’s wife Marina Adamovich wrote on Facebook: “I am not worried - I scream.”

Marina is a veteran among the wives of political prisoners. If you look for the most “heroic hero” in Belarus, then this is undoubtedly Statkevich. In total, he has been in prison for more than 10 years: after a rally against falsifications of the 2004 referendum results (this is when Lukashenko canceled the restrictions on two presidential terms in the Constitution) he was sent for three years to “chemistry”. After the 2010 elections, where Nikolai was a presidential candidate (his phrase on the air television “Vyarnі, Scho!”, Turned to Lukashenko, is still remembered in Belarus), he served 5 years. Since May 2020, he is back in bars, now with a period of 14 years. And if his wife Marina screams, then everything is really very scary. What is happening with Statkevich and Kolesnikova is just one way to destroy political prisoners. In general, there are many of these methods.

"Zechka Yo .. I got off the shcke"

On November 30, when it became known about the hospitalization of Maria Kolesnikova, the former political prisoner Olga Gorbunova (after six months in a pre -trial detention center she was sentenced to 3 years of “chemistry” - serving a sentence in an open -type correctional institution - and was released in the courtroom, after which Olga left Belarus) in her Facebook remembered how this happened to her in prison: “Once in prison:“ Once upon a time I was forgiven with my life, I thought that I was dying and no one would help me, I remember how I was lying, cried and thoughts about my relatives in my thoughts ... I don’t know how it was in their hostages for years, I had a few months, sick kidneys from the cold for the cold, two covids, baking -lungs, gastric attacks, gesturing hormones, giving hormones, inflammation and anal bleeding from immobility, reduced vision, full of blood of blood after several weeks of lack of a toothbrush and all other “little things”. When I could not breathe and suffocated, the doctor wanted to listen to my lungs through the “feeder”. "Yes, it's okay, just a snake Yo .. I got off the shcke!" "Die, just not on my shift!" - These are quotes from the doctors of the pre -trial detention center. And the two political prisoners who tried to commit suicide in Kartsere were first beaten with their feet and only then took it to the medical block ... Only this procedure for providing medical care in pre -trial detention centers and colonies. I have not seen and did not hear other stories. ”

“The largest buzz for the jailer is a disease or poor health of the prisoner,

- my husband Andrei Sannikov said, leaving the colony in 2012. - Because when the task is to break a person, his physical suffering is very effective. Suppose a person has a hypertensive crisis. But he does not know what kind of pill he will bring him a waist. Maybe to reduce pressure, or perhaps to increase. They just bring you a pill and do not say what it is. When I was tormented by back pain, something that helped helped me twice. And for the third time-something terrible, which made me even worse. And in this state, when I could not get up, they sent to the stage. ”

Nikolai Statkevich in two and a half years of his last imprisonment suffered Covid three times. The third time with pneumonia. Now he is in a medical unit, but a letter with permission to a medical parcel (to obtain drugs from the will you need permission from the administration) miraculously “lost”. Nikolai wrote about his illness and high temperatures to his wife Marina on November 10 - no more letters came. In the same last letter, Nikolai told his wife that on November 11 a commission would be held, after which a schizo again, so let him not scare the break in letters. The lawyer was not allowed to be launched on November 24 - they said that he was already with pneumonia for several days in a medical unit. It turns out that until the medical unit he was in a schizo. With Covid and temperature - despite the fact that before placing a prisoner in a schizo, a local doctor must give a conclusion about the possibility of a prisoner for health reasons to be there. One can imagine how they “care” about the state of health of Statkevich, if as a result he was in a hospital bed.

Maria Kolesnikova was also in the schizo - her lawyer Vladimir Pilchenko found out about this on November 22, when he was not missed to the client. He came twice more, and he was not allowed. The last time Pylchenko was in a colony on November 29, when Kolesnikova was already in the hospital. If the lawyer had not arrived, perhaps for a long time no one would have known where she was and what was with her. However, what is still unknown with her. Kolesnikova’s father says they cannot name the diagnosis without written permission from her. Information about a perforated ulcer began to appear on the network, but no one can confirm or refute it. It can only be argued that Kolesnikova was lucky, since the colony administration nevertheless called an ambulance. And they could just give aspirin and wait if it itself would resolve.

Vitold Ashurka did not resolve. He was found dead in the cell of the schizo of the Shklovskaya colony No. 17 on May 21 of last year - exactly one month after the stage from the investigative insulator. Vitold, a 50-year-old activist from Berezovka, who was sentenced to 5 years in prison in the Lida district, for participation in protests. In a pencil colony, Ashurka was immediately sent to a schizo. On May 21, relatives were informed that he died of cardiac arrest. On May 25, the Investigative Committee released a video from the SHISO camera. It can be seen how Vitold falls in the cell and hit his head. Then the guard comes in, leaves the bandage and leaves. The second time, already with his head bandaged, Vitold falls and does not get up anymore. That is, a person loses consciousness for no reason, falls - and in a schizo they do not even cause a doctor. Just a guard who does not have a medical education, bandages his head and calmly leaves, leaving a person who is clearly in need and examination of a person. Perhaps if Vitold called an ambulance, he would be alive. Of course, the audit ended with the fact that the guilty was not found, and death was declared natural. Please note: both Kolesnikov and Statkevich - in a schizo. In the schizo was the deceased Vitold Ashukur. This is another method of pressure on political prisoners.

Shiso: cold, hunger, darkness, prison

In order to get to the schizo, this “prison in prison”, the political prisoner does not need to do anything: in the administration of the prison or colony themselves will figure out what violations to fit into a personal file in order to put a person in a punishment cell. In Belarusian colonies, this is a concrete bag, in which it is always very cold. Moreover, outerwear is taken (not always and not everyone, but from political - always).

"School" is unfastened from the wall only at night. Rise in a schizo - at 5 in the morning. If you are lucky and take off for a half -hour walk, then immediately after lifting, at 5 in the morning. A person sitting in a schizo does not see daylight at all. But the electric one burns around the clock, although the light is turned off in the detachments at night. It is impossible to use their own products (from the transfer from relatives or purchased in the “hauling”), and they are not always given the balance. Refusal of food, warm clothes - a common thing. Often in the cell of the schizo, unlike the usual prison, there is not even a stool screwed to the floor, so that from 5 a.m. to 10 pm, the prisoner can either squat or stand. They are warmed by jumping or running in place - those who else can. Statkevich or Kolesnikov, judging by where they are now, could no longer jump for a snowdrift. For Vitold, the concrete walls of the schizu became the last that he saw in life. And even from the pre -trial detention center he wrote to his friends: "There would be cigarettes and coffee, and I will survive anywhere." He did not survive. And not because of the lack of coffee in the kartser.

On November 23, Radieo Svaboda published a story of Viktor Parkchik, who was recently released from the Shklovskaya colony, who confirmed: people were beaten there, who were sitting in other cells of Shiso at the same time as Ashurk, they heard screams from his cell, and in the colony of newcomers they warn: you can not ask questions about Vitold's death, this may end poorly. And no one will know anything, because those who fall into the schizo find themselves in complete isolation.

And the point is not only that a person is deprived of calls and letters - they don’t even allow a lawyer to him.

Moreover, with different formulations: from the bully, “the prisoner Sidorov did not provide convincing evidence that he needs legal assistance” to the sympathetic “and would be happy, but Sidorov did not submit a statement to a meeting with a lawyer” - despite the fact that according to the law, a lawyer has the right to visit his client in places of imprisonment without any statements. And in the absence of any contacts with the world - both external and other prisoners - a person is completely dependent on the administration. No one knows what was happening with Statkevich or Kolesnikova in a schizo until he entered the hospital. And what actually happened to Vitold Ashurcom, perhaps we will never recognize.

You will not want to add additives?

After the sentence, each prisoner begins the return count: now he knows exactly how much he should sit, and can begin to count the days, months, years. But if you are a Belarusian political prisoner, it is better not to do this. They can be taken from the colony in jail and charged a new charge as journalist Kata Andreeva, who served most of her “two -leggings”, but ended up for 8 years for treason.

But why invent a new case, accusation, to carry out investigative actions, if there is article 411 in the Belarusian Criminal Code - malicious disobedience to the requirements of the administration of a correctional institution? Everything is simple here: the administration writes a petition - and the judge comes directly to the colony, where he adds to a year. So it can continue indefinitely.

In the kartseres of Rechitskaya colony No. 24, Polina Sharendo-Panasyuk sits.

Polina is a legendary personality. In Belarus, it is called only Brest Zhanna d'Arc. She is in resistance for more than 20 years,

Even a girl created in Brest the regional departments of the youth opposition movements "Zubr" and "Malady Front". Later she joined the "European Belarus." Without Polina in Brest, not a single protest was complete. In 2019, Polina moved to deputies and literally in a couple of days collected the right number of signatures: she was respected in Brest. She was even registered as a candidate for deputies - and Polina on the air of state television called Lukashenko a dictator. Yes, and the white-red-white flag dragged there. Then, however, they did not put it - they only deprived of registration. But the repressions that began a year later could not help but touch it - too famous, too brave, too annoying.

Pauline was arrested on January 3, 2021. She was at home with the youngest son, four -year -old Stah, when unknown people in black with balaclavas on their heads knocked out the door and broke into the apartment. Polina’s husband Andrei then served administrative arrest, and she could only protect her child herself. Polina tore Balaklava from the most aggressive attacker. She was sentenced to begin with two years.

The trial of Polina Sharendo-Panasyuk will someday become the basis for the play (Czech theaters, by the way, are already writing a video with the productions of this court-this is a campaign of solidarity). Here is a part of her dialogue with the judge:

- The accused, get up!

- I do not stand in front of the bandits.

- From what day is in custody?

- captured on January 3.

- Do you want to declare a challenge to the composition of the court?

- You are not a court.

- Do you declare me a challenge?

- I declare the entire system.

- Do you admit guilt?

- Do you admit that you are participating in political repressions?

- Questions are not asked to the court. Do you guilty of yourself?

- Give a rebuff to the bandit - the honor and duty of a citizen.

- The accused, are there any questions?

- Are you not ashamed?

- The question is removed.

- Is there a conscience?

- The question is removed.

In general, Polina - of those unbending, who, at a roll call in the colony, will call themselves not convicted, but prisoners. The “answers” ​​was not long in coming: in the Gomel colony, Polina was kept mostly in the schizo - a new report immediately followed her release and access to the detachment - and in April the “exit” the judge added to her for the non -use of another year. In early summer, she was transferred to colony No. 24 for recidivists. But Polina Sharendo-Panasyuk did not see the colony: out of four months in IR No. 24, she spent 80 days in a schizo, and then she was placed for six months in the PCT (chamber-type premises, the same punishment cell, only for a long time). This means that in the next six months (as in the previous four months), a lawyer will not be allowed to go to her, she will be deprived of passages, letters and calls, Polina’s endless days will conduct, sitting squatting or standing against the wall, and most importantly - in complete and absolute isolation. If something happens to her, no one will know. In a short period between the schizo and PKT, she managed to send her husband one letter from which he learned that she would be judged again under the same 411 article for disobedience. Only the second time it will not be a year of additional term, but two. And so it can continue indefinitely.

Perhaps, somewhere behind the wall, in the next PCT chamber, Victoria Kulsha is now also located, which also received a “gift” year plus for the main two-year term (during 2020 protests, it was the 97%drivers administrator). Victoria in the colony tried to follow the rules, but once she did not fasten the lower button of the coat. This turned out to be enough for PCT and a new criminal case.

In the Gomel pre -trial detention center, where she was transferred after the second sentence, Victoria kept a hunger strike for two weeks announced after the administration refused to send her complaint to the General Prosecutor's Office. Victoria felt badly, she began with uterine bleeding, and she asked for a hospital. But the prison doctors said that they would do this only when she is “on the last out of breath,” her daughter told about this. (Now we can imagine what “exhalation” Kolesnikov was on, before the doctors of the Gomel colony called an ambulance.)

Stah, the youngest son of Polina Sharendo-Panasyuk, after the arrest of her mother at first could not understand anything, all the time ran to the bedroom and complained to his father that he could not find his mother. Two years have passed, now for six years, and he understands everything. And most importantly, he knows: his mother will return home only after Lukashenko leaves.