Belarus Seniors Are Sending a “SOS” Signal to the International Community

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The presidential elections of August 9th, 2020 in Belarus were rigged. As a result, different groups of society, from senior to disabled people, went out for mass protests. The authorities responded with repressions of incredible brutality.

We are pensioners. We don’t want to rule. We don’t want to conquer. We would like to help everyone in our country to realize the mayhem of the current government. That’s why we have been peacefully manifesting since October 5h, 2020: so that everyone, even accomplices of the regime, recognizes that he/she is a Person with the right to choose.

“One man’s son was severely beaten and crippled by the riot police on the 9th of August. Now the father goes out manifesting instead of his son,” says a participant of the protest march.

“Four cops bludgeoned my best student for a poster that said ‘I am against violence’. They damaged his kidneys. So, I go out and manifest for him,” are the words of a professor.

“My son didn’t return from work on the 10th of August. He disappeared. Three days later, volunteers of a human organization brought him with broken legs. How can I accept this?”

On October 12th, 2020, during the crackdown of a senior citizen march in Minsk, the forces used flash-bang cartridges for the “Wasp” handgun and tear gas. 

“We could hardly breathe. An ambulance came for one woman. My face was burning until late night,” wrote a 69-year-old woman.

The reaction of the government mounted with each Monday. The amount of detentions increased. But we couldn’t remain indifferent to what was happening in the country, to the way our children and grandchildren were abused!

Larisa Sous, 79 years old, who survived the Holocaust, was detained on the 6th of December. She rushed to protect a young guy dragged by the riot police officers. “Take me instead of him!” shouted the woman. Both were taken to the Aktsiabrski RUUS [Regional Department of Internal Affairs, a police station]. “I noticed many battered people there”, recounts Larisa. “I was sitting  near the guy they took in front of my eyes. He had a wounded hip. During all the four hours I was at the police station, blood was dripping from his leg. I stroked his head and tried to support him, as if he was my son or a grandson.”

On the 8th of December in Savestki district court, 66-year-old Valiantsina Khilutsich was prosecuted. In front of the court, she complained about heart problems and told the judge that sometimes she was prone to losing consciousness. The judge sentenced the sick woman to 10 days of jail . 

On December 14th, mass detentions of retirees happened on the Independence square. Arrested for  “a dance around a Christmas tree”, more than a hundred elderly people were thrown  into police vans and brought to RUUSes. The oldest of them, Valeriya Spirydonava, was 89 years old. “Please follow us into the van, we’ll just verify your documents and will release you,” promised the people in uniforms. “But they deceived us. Many of us were sentenced for days of arrest, many were fined,” she recalls.

And what happens in the detention centers during the coronavirus pandemic? “Government agencies are deliberately not taking any measures to protect the prisoners from getting infected by COVID-19. Those who are infected are not treated”, says an intermediary report of the International Committee for Investigation of Torture in Belarus.

Is there any reason for arresting the retirees and keeping them in prison cells? Are they so dangerous for society? And all that during the pandemic!

The power was taken by scoundrels who promised great future to the young and stability to the elderly. They deceived us! They didn’t fulfill their promises.

Zhodzina court has fined 75-year-old Iraida Misko with  1.5 size her monthly pension for her expressing the protest with white-red-white[1] marshmallow. They raided her house and seized her computer. And how many are there detained for white-red-white umbrellas?!

Six female retirees that were practicing Scandinavian walking in a forest were detained near Vitsebsk. “We are surrounded by people in black,” one of the women managed to notify her husband on the phone. And then the line went dead.

“When I was in an isolation cell, three times I asked to call for a doctor, but all my requests were ignored,” remembers Alena Litsvinava, a 57-year-old teacher from Homel. The woman spent 5 days in a temporary detention prison waiting for the trial, despite the Belarusian law allowing to detain a person for an administrative case for only up to 72 hours. They didn’t even pass the medicine to her and didn’t provide any medical assistance.

87-year-old Yelizaveta Bursava, USSR Champion in shooting, was fined for a white-red-white flag on her balcony. “I have lived to see another case of fascism in my country.”

Halina Dzerbysh of 59 years old from the suburbs of Hrodna is considered a “terrorist granny” by the government. A person with a golden heart, she has helped people and stray animals. KGB[2] has included her in the list of persons involved in terrorist activities! Halina was arrested on December 10th, she has oncology and heart problems. Her health condition seriously worsened in the prison.

Skype court trials have become a commonplace in Belarus. A trial can last 5 minutes! For instance, in the schedule for January 11th, 2021 for Partyzanski district court there were 10 judges. Each of them had 4 to 6 cases. 5-20 minutes were given per case. Some of the detained people were prosecuted in absentia and were even never informed about the trials, therefore being deprived of the right to defense in court.

“Only after I was released, I learned that I was sentenced to 20 days of arrest,” shares a victim.

Retirees have expressed many concerns about the Internet connection quality during the Skype-based court trials: the judge can’t be heard, the people have no time to make sense of their words. Victims’ claims and complaints were not taken into account; they were hurried and judged like on a “conveyor belt” as a result. Innocent and decent people were prosecuted for peacefully expressing their opinion. “There must be no alternative views in our country,” the government believes.

The people who served their detention sentences recounted the prison conditions. The care packages were not allowed. The cells were overcrowded.

Imagine an elderly person in a cold cell without mattresses forced to sleep on a concrete floor! “In a cell for 4 persons, there were 12 of us,” remembers one of the detained women. “Four women brushed their teeth with one toothbrush, because no care packages with hygiene were allowed.”

Unbearable prison conditions, threats of violence to children and grandchildren, refusal to provide medical assistance, insults, cases of teargas usage, enormous fines that are 2 to 4 times their monthly pension amount. This is what elderly people faced in the detention cells. Some government officials even urged to deprive us of pensions because of “lack of loyalty” to the former president. All that is used against defenseless elderly people who have been courageous enough to express their opinion about the state. The state they had built with their labor, to which they had been paying taxes for their entire lives. Is genocide of the senior people indeed possible in the 21st century in a European country?

We want to be worthy people and to have our own opinions! Do we, who have worked for the country for our whole lives, have to shut up and obediently watch it falling apart, our youth being tortured, and the core of our nation — scientists, journalists, doctors, professors — becoming prisoners?

In one of the prisons, detainees were forced to crawl through a long corridor on their hands and knees (dog-like). A senior woman, a former doctor, couldn’t crawl while squatting because of her sick joints. She had to crawl on her knees. Isn’t this a torture, pure and simple?

There are no public associations of senior citizens in Belarus. Three times they have attempted to register the Public Association of Belarus Pensioners “Our Generation”. Three times they were denied. Public initiative that doesn’t demonstrate loyalty to the government is impossible in our country. Tatsiana Zialko, the leader of “Our Generation”, has taken part in many senior citizen marches. For one of the December protests she spent time in a temporary detention prison and was fined by an amount exceeding her monthly pension (and by the way, that was not the first fine on her account).

Rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus have been infringed upon, they have no legal weight and are perverted by the State in their own interest.

84-year-old Yan Hryb from Minsk has been a participant of many marches. In the beginning of January, he was forcefully taken from his home and brought to court. He refused to take part in the trial: “These are no trials, this is a circus. You don’t adhere neither to the Constitution nor to the laws. You were told to snatch people’s money, and you don’t even hesitate to take the last cent from disabled elderly persons, deprive them from their last piece of bread.” Yan was fined for an amount of several monthly pensions.

There is no justice in the country. It doesn’t work. What works well, though, are persecutions, torture, and abuse. And from the 1st of March, new amendments with increasing penalties have been introduced to the Administrative Code.

The country that A. Lukashenka doesn’t want to give away so much has been built with our own hands. For 26 years, he has been incompetently running the country, and common people were holding this state on their shoulders.

Nina Bahinskaya, a 74-year-old woman, detained dozens of times, is our world-renowned heroine. It seems nobody will ever be able to break her! This fragile elderly woman with a flag in her hands has often encouraged people during the protests. And despite A. Lukashenka’s order “not to touch her” on the 20th of October, no later than on the 5th of November her home was raided. “In fact, I’m a sponsor of the police, so I’m not afraid of them… If they kill me, who’s going to pay their salaries? You’re already taking 50% of my pension, stealing it.” 

83-year-old Ryhor Shadurski, ex-player of “Torpedo”, a capital’s football team, and a hockey player of the Belarusian SSR national team, went to the streets protesting with many others. “What drives me? I’m a Belarusian. I have always had something like that in me. Maybe the sense of patriotism is influenced by sports. I have always thought that no country is better than Belarus.” He was arrested on the 20th of December. Taken to a corridor and put up against a wall with his hands raised. He spent 1.5 hours in this posture. Later, when he was already home, he showed two photos. In one, Minsk citizens standing along the wall of a RUUS with their hands up, in the other - is the same image from the WWII period: “Look, they are just beasts! They plainly abuse people. Torturing the elderly is a horror.”

We have such “fighters” as Alena Hnauk from Brest among us. This pensioner has been detained several times, served 15 days in prison, got an enormous amount of fines. But she continues to act as her consciousness tells her.

On March 1st a group of pensioners were detained in a Minsk train for reading books in Belarusian! A veteran of labor, an old-age pensioner with cancer, Halina Huliankova was sentenced to 20 days of arrest! She didn’t plead guilty. Others were also sentenced to 15-20 days of arrest and were fined 2-4.5 times their monthly pensions!

How much money has the government stolen from the seniors! How many people have served and are still serving days in prison in inhumane conditions! Belarusian writers — the pride of the nation — are forbidden! This mayhem makes our hearts ache!

We call on the international community to draw close attention to the infringement of Belarus citizens’ rights and to raise the question of sanctioning the guilty in the International Court of Justice.

Dictators everywhere have always strived to enslave their people. But we continue to fight for our future and for our country to become free and prosperous, to finally shine in the democratic constellation! We continue to fight for a sane world where law, humanity and progress warrant happiness and well-being for everyone!

[1] The historic flag of Belarus, one of the main symbols of the protest, is comprised of white, red, and white stripes. (Translator’s remark.)

[2] Belarus is the only post-Soviet country retaining the name KGB (the Committee of National Security) for the corresponding government agency. (Translator’s remark.)