Prisoners in exile tell of brutality behind bars in Belarus

Larissa would have been happier staying in prison for the last four months of her sentence if she could have gone home at the end of the term.

Instead, she was transported by bus across the border from Belarus to Lithuania with 51 other political prisoners. They were released in September as part of a sanctions relief deal reached between authoritarian Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko and US President Donald Trump.

During the three years she spent behind bars on charges of “extremism” and “defaming” Belarus, Larisa Shirakova missed her mother’s funeral. Now she cannot visit her grave.

She left behind her son, her house, her dog, and all her possessions. Like most released prisoners, Larissa has no documents and risks arrest if she returns.

She told the BBC: “You lose everything overnight. It’s a painful thought to be homeless at 52.”

In fact she had no choice.

Veteran opposition politician Mykola Statkevich got off the Larissa bus and refused to cross the border. He has not been heard from since and was supposedly sent straight back to prison.

Mikalaj Dziaduk, a 37-year-old activist, spent five years behind bars and was marked with a special yellow tag, meaning tighter supervision and harsher treatment.

Yellow markers instead of white originally indicated prisoners in danger of suicide or escape, so guards could get a closer look at them.

But for Mikalay and others, it has been used for political prisoners deemed “vulnerable to extremism.” Thousands were sent to prison in the weeks and months after Lukashenko brutally suppressed mass protests in 2020.

Dziaduk recalls how he was placed for months in solitary confinement with prisoners in cells on either side shouting “insults and threats to rape, kill and dismember him.”

He told the BBC: “They banged their bowls against the wall for hours, day and night. They wouldn’t let me sleep, and it was impossible to read, write or even think.”

Dziaduk is sure that the prisoners were acting on the orders of the guards.

“[The authorities] “We understood that the vast majority of us would be released sooner or later,” he said. “If they had to release that person, it was necessary to shock him as much as possible so that he could not participate in political activity in the future.”

Solitary confinement is routinely used in Belarus as punishment against political prisoners for trivial “violations,” such as not saluting guards loudly enough. Human rights groups say this is how the authorities apply psychological pressure on prisoners.

Another political prisoner released in September, Dmitry Kuchuk, said that when he was in solitary confinement, guards would torture him by falsely saying that his mother had died or that he would be released soon.

The BBC contacted the Belarusian Ministry of the Interior to comment on these allegations, but did not receive a response.

Yevgeny Mirkis, a colleague who was arrested before Larisa Shirakova and released with her in September, said the solitary confinement cells were small and freezing.

“The floor is tiled, the walls are cold, and in winter, if the temperature is higher than -5 degrees Celsius, they open the window during the day,” Merkes told the BBC.

“You have a special uniform, and you can’t wear anything underneath, no jacket, everything is taken away. At night, they open a bed for you. It’s just a wooden board with metal edges.”

Mikalay Dziaduk said he learned how to exercise at night, half asleep, to warm up. “My personal best is 300 push-ups and the same number of sit-ups in one night,” he said.

Larisa Shirakova was never placed in solitary confinement, but was able to walk around the prison yard.

Her former colleague Yevgeny had heard her singing from his cell, so he was able to smuggle a letter to her without revealing her identity, engraved in the bottom of her bowl.

“I’m sitting there, eating porridge, and then I see the word com. trymaysya“, she said.

It means “wait” in Belarusian.

She’d seen prisoners’ scribbles before – on library books or on a bench in the exercise yard. But this was in Belarusian, and I immediately felt that it must have been written by a political prisoner, because they were careful not to use Russian.

When she finished eating, she realized that her name was written on the bowl as well: “Shirakova, wait.”

It was clearly from someone she knew, although she had no idea that it was her friend Yevgeny Mirkiss who had written the letter hoping she would see it.

“She inspired me so much. There was something almost mystical about her,” she said.

Two years later, they were among 52 political prisoners released in September, amid a wave of pardons following negotiations between Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko and Donald Trump.

In June, opposition politician Sergei Tikhanovsky, husband of presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, was released. In July, 16 others were released.

Trump later referred to Lukashenko as a “highly respected president” — a diplomatic boost for the leader whose declared victory over Tikhanovskaya in the 2020 election was dismissed as “fraudulent” by the US, EU, UK and Canada.

In exchange for the release of prisoners in September, Washington lifted sanctions imposed on the Belarusian airline Belavia, so that banks could unfreeze its financial assets.

But there is no move toward a broader political “thaw” in Belarus.

“In Belarus, everything goes in circles,” says Mikalay Dzyaduk. “After each wave of protest, gather as many political prisoners as possible, and then, little by little, replace them with a thaw in relations with the West.”

According to the Viasna Center for Human Rights, about 1,220 political prisoners remain behind bars.

Charges can range from insulting the president or participating in an extremist organization to calling for actions that threaten Belarus’ national security.

Larisa Shirakova is now adjusting to her new life in Lithuania, and everything she owns, whether food or clothes, has been funded by the Belarusian expatriate community.

But at least now, more than a month after her release, she has finally been reunited with her 19-year-old son.