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The only official document human rights lawyer Uladzimir Labkovic had with him when he was suddenly released from prison belarus Jailed, blindfolded and taken to a neighbor’s ukraine There was a piece of paper with his name and mugshot written on it.
“After four and a half years of abuse in prison, I was deported from my own country without a passport or valid documents,” Labkovich told The Associated Press by phone from Ukraine on Wednesday. “This is another dirty trick by the Belarusian authorities, who are making our lives increasingly difficult.”
Labkovich, 47, was one of 123 prisoners released by Belarus on December 13 in exchange for the US lifting some trade sanctions on the president’s authoritarian government. Alexander LukashenkoAll but nine were taken to Ukraine; The rest – including Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bieliatsky – were evacuated to Lithuania,
Lukashenko, a close Russian ally, has ruled his country of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades. Belarus has faced years of Western isolation and sanctions over a harsh crackdown on human rights and allowing Moscow to use its territory in a 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Recently, Lukashenko has sought better relations with the West while releasing hundreds of prisoners by July 2024.
But in a final act of humiliation and repression, newly freed prisoners are often not told that they are being deported without passports or other identification documents. They must rebuild their lives abroad, facing bureaucratic obstacles, without the help of their homeland.
retaliation after release
Labkovich said that because he was blindfolded, he and others could only tell that they were headed south. According to rights advocates, at least 18 prisoners taken to Ukraine – including Labkovich and Belarusian opposition leaders Vitkar Babaryka and Maria Kolesnikova – had no documents. Germany has promised to give asylum to Babaryka and Kolesnikova.
“I dream of being in (Lithuania’s capital) Vilnius to embrace my three children and wife, but instead I have to deal with absurd bureaucratic procedures,” Labkovich said.
belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskayawho fled the country in 2020, told the AP in written comments that the way the prisoners were transported out of Belarus was “a forced deportation in violation of all international norms and regulations,” and that it amounted to inhumane treatment.
“Even after forgiving people, Lukashenko continues to retaliate against them,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “They prevent people from staying in the country, they forcibly expel them from Belarus without documents to further humiliate them.”
In September, Lukashenko pardoned more than 50 political prisoners who had been transported to the Lithuanian border.
One of them, prominent opposition activist Mikola Statkevich, refused to leave Belarus. The 69-year-old man, who called the government’s actions “forced deportation”, pushed out of the bus and remained for several hours in the no-man’s land between the borders before being taken away by Belarusian police and returned to prison.
Fourteen others who entered Lithuania after their release in September did not have passports. Freed activist Miklai Dziadok said that Belarusian security personnel tore up his passport in front of him. Freelance journalist Ihar Losik said that all his papers – including diaries – were confiscated.
“My passport was just stolen. We came here (Lithuania) – nobody had a passport. They took photos, all the papers, the verdict, notebooks – they took everything,” Losik said.
Nils Muiznieks, the UN special envoy on human rights in Belarus, described what happened to the prisoners as “not amnesty, but forced deportation”.
“These people were waiting to return to their homes and families,” he said in a statement. “Instead, they were expelled from the country, left without means of subsistence and, in some cases, stripped of identity documents.”
An activist group has raised more than 245,000 euros (about $278,000) for the released prisoners, and Tsikhanouskaya said she has asked Western governments for help.
,People “They went through real hell, and now we are working together to help them and facilitate their legalization and settlement, connecting all contacts with both American and European partners,” she said.
harsh prison conditions
Beliatsky, Labkovich and five other members of Viasna, Belarus’s oldest and most prominent rights group, were arrested in Lukashenko’s crackdown on mass protests after a 2020 election that kept him in power and was condemned by the opposition and the West as rigged. Thousands of people were arrested, many brutally beaten, while thousands fled abroad.
Along with Bialiatsky, Labkovich was accused of “financing public unrest” and helping those affected by the crackdown. Bialiatski was sentenced to 10 years in prison; Labkovic got seven.
Prison officials tried to force Labkovich to cooperate and initiated two more criminal cases against him – refusal to obey orders of prison authorities and high treason, which could have added another 15 years to his sentence.
Labkovich said he spent more than 200 days in solitary confinement and “lost count of more nights on the concrete floor in the icy cell.”
Two other Viasna activists – Marfa Rabkova and Valiantsin Stefanovic – are imprisoned. Labkovich believes that he and others are still being detained so that authorities can “influence the behavior and statements of those who are released.”
Babarika, 62, recalled fainting while in prison in 2023 and once waking up with broken ribs, a punctured lung, pneumonia and 23 wounds on his head. He said he did not know what happened while she was unconscious and did not want to go into detail about the conditions behind bars.
“I will tell you the truth: People who come out should not talk about how they were and what they felt, because many people live inside the system and based on what they say, they will usually get harm rather than benefits,” Babaryka said in Chernihiv, Ukraine, on Sunday.
His 35-year-old son, Eduard Babaryka, one of more than 1,100 political prisoners still held in Belarus, is serving a 10-year sentence on charges of organizing mass unrest.
action at home and abroad
While prisoner releases have recently become more regular, Lukashenko’s crackdown continues, targeting critics wherever they live. Belarusians living abroad cannot renew their passports or obtain new passports at embassies and consulates, making life difficult for thousands fleeing repression.
Exiled opposition activists, rights advocates and journalists face criminal trials in absentia. Authorities seize their apartments and other property, with courts rejecting efforts to contest those measures.
Activists say there is a “revolving door” of prisoner releases and arrests. Since the December 13 release, Viasna declared seven more people political prisoners, and 176 people since September.
Despite this month’s pardon, Amnesty International director for Eastern Europe Mary Struthers urged people not to forget those whose freedom is “long overdue.”
“If this release is part of a political bargain, it only underlines the reprehensible treatment of people as pawns by the Belarusian authorities,” she said.
Earlier this week, activist Aliaksandr Zdarvenou, 46, from the southern town of Rechitsa, was convicted of high treason and participating in extremist activities and sentenced to 10 years in prison. 44-year-old subway engineer Yuri Karnitsky and 52-year-old shop clerk Elena Hartanovich were added to the Interior Ministry’s list of extremists.
Muizniks said, “While the release of the prisoners is certainly a relief, there are no signs of a change in the policy or practice of repression on the part of the Belarusian authorities.” “Belarus ranks among the countries with the highest number of political prisoners per capita.”