"Close my face"

How Switzerland refused a participant in Belarusian protests in defense, deciding that the political situation in the country "does not interfere with the expulsion"

When the whole country went out into the streets

When the Minsk resident Alexei the Great Socialist, OMON on Nemig Street in July 2020, he thought that this was a necessary sacrifice: freedom did not fall from the branch, he had to fight for her, and the enemy does not spare this struggle. When the video on which the security forces drag the guy in the car carrier, and Alexei tries to recapture it from them, appeared on the popular “online” resource, our hero did not think that it was dangerous: very soon, it seemed that such videos would become just archival, and journalists would from time to time mount films from the next anniversary of victory. When Alexei left Belarus in the fall of 2020, he was not going to stay in Europe at all. But everything turned out to be different.

In protest promotions, Alexei has participated since 2010. But he did not believe that they would change the situation: he just went out in order to increase the number of demonstrators with his human unit. To show: there are a lot of disagreements. To live in Lada with a conscience and know that it does not stop and does not sit out. And in the spring of 2020, when the next presidential election was announced, he decided that there were simply few participation in the shares. He entered the initiative group of Viktor Babariko, signed up as a volunteer in all civilian projects - from independent observation to video shooting. He printed leaflets of independent candidates, distributed them in his area, registered with an observer, participated in campaign bike races - at first all this seemed a normal political process.

And then they arrested Sergei Tikhanovsky and Viktor Babariko, they refused to register Valery Tsepkalo, and people went out into the streets in protest. On Nemiga, Alexei saw that riot police were dragging some guy in a car gut. Then all were still unblinked, and the Great Service ran to the riot police and tried to recapture that guy. On the other hand, another person ran up, unfamiliar. Together, they helped the guy break out, and he was able to run away. Alexei then got a lot, but still he felt like a winner who did not allow injustice to happen.

Then it was August 9, when the whole country seemed to have entered the streets-even in those cities where Lenin still stands on small central squares and there have never been any protests. And, despite the beating, rubber bullets, light -school grenades and waterlets, people came out every day. On August 18, was the birthday of Sergei Tikhanovsky. Volunteers from the headquarters of Babariko asked Alexei to come to a pre -trial detention center on Volodarsky Street, where Tikhanovsky was sitting, and shoot a rally. He shot, and the “Tikhars” ( employees of the special services in civilian clothes, conducting the observation of the protest rally. - Approx. Ed. ) Filmed it - and, of course, everyone else who came to the walls of the prison that evening. Alexey did not think about the danger at all. Every evening he went to the square.

The rest is in front

At the end of October 2020, the children began the autumn holidays, and the wife of Alexei fell ill with Covid. She asked to take away the children, because it was impossible to isolate in a small apartment. Alexei and the children got into the car and drove through Poland, who opened, despite the pandemic Lokdown, borders for Belarusians, to Switzerland. There, Alexei lives mom and sister. Both are from the nineties. Both are Switzerland citizens. The whole family stayed regularly with my mother. Alexey even began his small business thanks to these trips. At first he carried cars from there, then he began to supply a sportventary to Belarus, opened the rental point.

In general, they stayed with my mother. We hung up. They dreamed about the new Belarus, which is already very close, it remained very slightly. And at this time in Belarus, they began to plant no longer on the surroundings and not for a day, but in a pre -trial detention center for mass riots. On October 25, a real massacre on Oryol Street in Minsk happened. On October 26, the artist Alexander Nurdinov was arrested - for participating in a rally on August 9 (sentence - four years). On November 4, the drummer Alexei Sanchuk was detained - photos with marches were found on his phone and as a result was sentenced to six years in the colony. Then - Victoria Kulsh and Oleg Kravtsov (both in the colonies, Victoria for the second time added an additional year of the deadline).

The head of the GUBOPIK of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Nikolai Karpenkov (now he is the deputy minister of the interior) in early November announced that 500 participants in the protest shares had already been detained, and the rest is ahead. And that the security forces to the protesters will "humanely use weapons, including firearms."

And on November 11, a monstrous murder of Roman Bondarenko came up near the same Oryol Street right in the courtyard, where local residents hung red and white ribbons and drank tea.

Following the journalist Katerina Borisevich and the doctor Artyom Sorokin - Katerina published a commentary to the doctor that the deceased Roman Bondarenko was beaten to death, and was not at all drunk, as the propagandists tried to present. It was dangerous to return. And then not only Karpenkov, but also other security forces began to threaten state media that they would find everyone who participated in protests, and everyone will receive deserved. And then Alexei decided to ask for protection.

BLEF is evident

He lived in a refugee camp for a year. At first, the children remained with Alexei's mother, but then they had to move to him: these are the rules for those who ask for asylum. The first six months, the family was in a filtration center with very harsh conditions of stay, where the primary vesting is going on: the authorities have the right to deport even without interviews if they seem unconvincing to seek protection. Then the wife of Alexei arrived, and the whole family was moved to another camp. There were already conditions, as in a hostel. The Great Selishes were provided with a separate room, and it was possible to go freely and come.

Last spring, the family was given social housing. And then from the State Secretariat on Migration, a refusal came to provide asylum. Alexey appealed the decision in the Federal Administrative Court, but the court decision was the same: refusal. But the reasons for the refusal are the most amazing in this story.

The applicant was said to the refusal of both instances, was not subjected to repression, and the fact of the appearance of his photographs from peaceful shares of protest in the media cannot threaten anything. “Although the Belarusian authorities often detain opposition demonstrators for up to two weeks to curb their warlike ardor, this does not apply to an appeal that has never been arrested,” writes the Migration Secretariat and the court (documents are in the editorial office).

“For a term of up to two weeks,” is a marvelous wording, given the sentences for participating in protests. Alexei the Great Steel really thought if he was accidentally made from the fly of the elephant, and wrote a letter to the human rights center Vasna. They answered him: “The presence of a person in the photo/video that is freely available can potentially be the reason for initiating a criminal case under Part 2 of Art. 293 of the Criminal Code (participation in riots). At the moment, “Viesna” is known about 161 in such a case, when a conviction was sentenced. ” That is, only from photographs from media and social networks on which the security forces identified the participants in the shares. By the way, about the recognition of the photo: “As for the proposed possibility of identifying demonstrators using the person recognition program, the analysis conducted by SEM ( Secretary of State on migration issues. - Approx. Ed. ) Shows that it was introduced by the Belarusian authorities exclusively for the purpose of the bluff.”

And here you can already applaud. Because, having joined the sanctions against the Lukashenko regime, Switzerland, like all European Union states, included Synesis LLC in the sanctions list, which created the Kipod platform to recognize persons. The security forces use it with great success (by the way, not only in Belarus, but also in Russia): “Synesis LLC provides the Belarusian authorities with a surveillance platform that can search and analyze video materials and use the programs to recognize persons, which makes the company responsible for suppressing civil society and democratic opposition to the state apparatus in Belarus. The Belarusian State Security Committee (KGB) and the Ministry of the Interior are indicated as users of the system created by Synesis. ” So what are you, bluff.

Private Belarusian

The main thing in this story, paradoxically, is not at all the case of Alexei the Great Socialist Republic and his family. As written in the court decision, "the applicant could not substantiate the long-term commitment of any party or dissident organization." And in this - salt. I will not offer now to imagine long -term dissidentism in North Korea or Iran, backed up by documents. This is not the point. Swiss officials are right in one. Alexei is not the leader of the opposition and not a notebook. He is an ordinary.

He is one of those hundreds of thousands of Belarusians who abandoned any compromises in the summer of 2020 and rushed into initiative groups, to volunteering, to the streets, to the yards to change the country.

Those who can “substantiate long -term commitment”, behind bars - units. And thousands are such as Alex. Emerging with flags, administering courtyard chats, hanging red-white ribbons, hoping for changes and in prison, or in exile, or in a nightmare, that at any moment security officials will break up to them, while the propagandists are “surrendered” (“ fighter” in Belarusian; To the power of the citizens of Belarus - approx . And they come what is important. According to Viesna, 62 people were convicted of March on criminal political articles, and 12 people were released at the end of the conclusion of 12 people. Such statistics in Belarus today.

“The Switzerland authorities do not realize the scale of repressions in Belarus,” says Swiss lawyer Vadim Drozdov, who once helped the family of Vitaly and Vladislav Kuznechikov, who had hidden a year and a half on the territory of the Swedish embassy in Minsk. - The secretariat of migration and the court did not consider individual circumstances of the case and ignored that in Belarus they plant not only for participation in protests, but also for likes, comments and subscriptions on the Internet. Not only well -known politicians and human rights activists fall under repression. Anyone can be subjected to arrest if he speaks out and this opinion does not coincide with the policy of the current government. Moreover, the logic of many European officials is as follows: if you are a well -known politician or human rights activist, they can plant. And if “just Vasya”, then nothing threatens.

Well, yes, it is written in the court’s decision: the presence of Alexei on the images widespread on the Internet will not endanger it in the event of returning to Belarus, and the political situation in the country does not at all prevent repatriation.

Difficulties of transfer from totalitarian

The problem is not in Alexei and not in the Swiss court, but in the fact that the farther to the West, the more impossible it seems to local residents - even officials who, in principle, should read at least the UN reports - Belarusian reality.

The Swiss really sincerely do not understand how the danger can threaten a person who simply participated in protests.

As two and a half years after these same protests, it is possible to plant people for photos in their phones. As a subscription to a telegram channel or commentary on the social network can turn into a few years of prison. They do not understand, because in their world this does not happen, which means that in principle it cannot be in European territory. In Afghanistan, Taliba, in Syria ISIS, but Belarus is in Europe.

So British journalists did not believe that during house arrest in the apartment there could be two KGB officers: “This could not be, because the dwelling is inviolable.” So the presidential candidates in the 2010 election, they sincerely asked in Europe: “But if you were illegally arrested, why didn’t you contact the police?” It’s just that this cannot be in the world, but we have it, but attempts to convince the world sometimes end in this: these are just some difficulties in translation.

A month ago, an unfamiliar girl found me through social networks. At this time, the next broadcast of the program of Alexei Pivovarov “Editor” about Belarus was the next broadcast of the program. I was one of the speakers of that program, my interview has already passed, but that girl asked me to urgently transmit her message to the authors:

"Good evening! In your issue at 40:36 minute, my photo with a poster is posted. I still live in Belarus, and they plant for this! They are planted even for photos from books, for the photos that are found on the Internet, an effective person recognition system has been developed and operates. Please close my face in any way, this is really a matter of my safety and freedom! I was detained three times in the 20th and 21st year, interrogated the GUBOPIK, did a search, now the repressions have been tightened even more, and even the slightest reason to open a criminal case. I beg you very much. Dates give simply unthinkable, and articles - terrorism, treason, attempt to seize power. Almost all familiar protesters left the country, please, I can’t leave, do not expose me to an unnecessary danger for the sake of a beautiful picture. If I need to verify me, I will send a photo. ”

Thanks to the colleagues for immediately smeared a photo of a beautiful girl with a poster. And I will not write anything else about the case of Alexei the Great Selight and other Belarusians, whose risk is questioned. That girl explained everything better than any expert, journalist or human rights activist. "Close my face."