“I considered myself not a convict, but rather a prisoner of war”

Aliaksandr Yarashuk, head of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP), shared his experience of being held in Belarusian prisons.

“A month after my release, I’ve decided to tell my own story of suffering—through the camps and prisons of Belarus,” writes Aliaksandr Yarashuk. “But let me start from the beginning.

Years of tension, constantly walking a tightrope, led to complete emotional burnout by 2019. At the beginning of that year, I repeatedly dropped everything and left important events I was attending—flying out of Geneva, Brussels, Moscow.

Anxiety, fear, panic attacks, depression, and insomnia were clear signs that my body was in serious distress.

I had to act immediately. So I did—finding an experienced psychotherapist in Minsk, under whose supervision I underwent treatment. By the end of the year, the crisis was mostly behind me. But who could have known that the epic year of 2020 lay ahead?

Naturally, I didn’t stay on the sidelines of those historic events—neither I nor my organization, the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP). As a result, by early 2022, I had returned to the same fragile psychophysical state I was in back in 2019.

I was planning to resume treatment with my therapist. But I didn’t make it in time. On April 19, a group of eight men from Alpha (special unit of the KGB) and the KGB stormed into the BKDP office, slapped handcuffs on me, and slammed my face down onto the table.

After hours of searching the office, I was taken to the KGB around midnight. That gruelling day continued with two overnight interrogations—officers of the Belarusian KGB, like their predecessors in Stalin’s NKVD, prefer to work at night. The day ended at 4 a.m., when I was placed in a KGB detention center cell.

The next morning, at 11 a.m., another interrogation took place.

The new investigator immediately asked, “Aliaksandr Ilyich, do you know how the Belarusian opposition is commenting on your arrest?” “I can guess,” I replied. “They’re saying: ‘A regime accomplice has been arrested.’”

He added, “They must be grateful to you for that.”

Although I allowed myself a joke, I wasn’t in the mood for joking. Being held in the KGB detention center was pure torture. That torture soon continued at Detention Center No. 1 on Volodarka Street, where I was transferred. I was simply surviving, without any hope of lasting long.

Waves of anxiety, fear, and panic attacks kept crashing over me. I remained in a deep depression, and my insomnia became chronic.

Soon, I was transferred from Volodarka to Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 4 in Mahiliou, where I awaited the outcome of my appeal to the Supreme Court against the verdict of the Minsk City Court. As expected, my appeal was denied. Another transfer followed, and in April 2023, I arrived at Correctional Facility No. 17 in the city of Shklov.

From day one in this torture factory, they began labelling me a persistent violator of internal regulations. The situation was so critical that the prison psychologist, after reading my intake form, rushed to examine my wrists.

“You have the profile of a suicide risk!” she exclaimed. “Are you thinking about suicide?” “Although thoughts of death never leave me,” I replied, “you can rest assured—I won’t harm myself. I promised my family I’d return, and I intend to keep that promise.”

Still, I wasn’t nearly as confident in my ability to survive.

Straight from quarantine, I was sent to the punishment isolation cell (SHIZO). The head of the colony, Mr. Korniyenko, and his subordinates proudly claim they run the harshest SHIZO in the country—and they have every right to. It’s hard to find a more sadistic attitude toward inmates, especially political prisoners, anywhere in Belarus. I was deprived of everything: packages, visits, access to the library, church, and exercise yard.

During my five months there, I was sent to SHIZO four times, and then spent two months in a high-security cell block (PKT). During one inspection, the zone’s chief himself—Mr. Korniyenko—entered my cell along with the duty assistant. He likely regretted it when I invited him to share in the experience of treating my mental health disorder through torture in SHIZO and PKT.

Korniyenko shot out of the cell like a bullet.

Soon after, my fate was sealed. By decision of the Shklov District Court, I was sent to serve the remainder of my sentence under strict regime in the closed prison of Mahiliou (ST-4).

A closed prison is not a colony. The conditions inside the cell are far harsher—more depressive and oppressive. You can never be sure that fate won’t place you in a cell with murderers or men who have raped their own children, mothers, wives, and so on.

In a closed prison, anything can happen. In ST-4, for example, two unstable inmates were placed in the same cell, and one ended up decapitating the other. After that, razors were confiscated from all prisoners and only handed out in the morning for a limited time.

The confined space, the lack of air, the immobility, and the windows sealed from the outside with metal shutters drain every ounce of life from you. They sap your strength.

Survival was only possible through extreme concentration of willpower and total mobilization of the body. Every letter I wrote to my family became a kind of antidepressant session. In my speech, in my letters, and in conversations with cellmates, I never mentioned prison. As if it didn’t exist for me—as if I wasn’t even there.

I tried to find common ground with all the inmates. I operated on a simple truth: that even in those convicted of the most serious crimes, something human still remained. I never called anyone by their nickname—only by their given name.

Very quickly, I felt the prison community begin to treat me with respect. The walls separating cells and inmates are no barrier to information. Everyone knows everything about everyone, since inmates are constantly moved from cell to cell.

Many of them became my friends, and I remember them warmly today. One, before being moved to another cell, left me his mattress; another gave me his pillow. Because what I slept on as a political prisoner could hardly be called bedding.

I built my relationship with the administration on the principle of the GULAG prisoners: “Don’t trust, don’t fear, don’t ask.” I was punished regularly, because an unwritten rule applies there—political prisoners are automatically considered violators of internal regulations. Over two years in the closed prison, I received five or six reprimands and was denied visits, but I was never sent to the punishment isolation cell (SHIZO).

Perhaps it was because the administration was satisfied that there were never any conflicts in the cells where I was held. Maybe it also had to do with the fact that I was the oldest inmate in the prison.

Besides, I never complained, asked for anything, or demanded anything. There were times when, after another bout of absurdity, I was denied antidepressants for four months. For the same amount of time, they withheld the blood pressure medication my wife had sent—medication I was supposed to take daily. In prison, I went from being hypotensive to hypertensive.

I trained myself to endure all these ordeals calmly, because I didn’t consider myself a convict, but rather a prisoner of war. I also had reason to believe that one of the factors behind my imprisonment—and that of my colleagues in the independent trade union movement—was our anti-war statements and support for Ukraine.

On July 23 of last year, I had a meeting with a prosecutor who had come from Minsk. We spoke for four hours about me writing a petition for clemency. “Fine,” I finally agreed, “I’ll write it—but not in the form you suggest. I won’t write that I recognize Lukashenko, the Constitution, or the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly.”

“Then we won’t get anywhere,” the prosecutor replied. “I’m not asking you for anything. You came to me—I didn’t come to you.” And that was the end of it.

My sentence was supposed to end on November 1. But watching what was happening, I came to the joyless conclusion that a month or so before my release, I might be pardoned. The regime likes to score points with this kind of pseudo-humanitarian gesture. And that’s exactly what happened.

As a result, instead of returning home, I was taken to Lithuania—stripped of my documents and, essentially, of my Belarusian citizenship.

As I adjust to freedom and adapt to a new life, I keep returning to that most dramatic period of my life. Prison taught me a lot. It changed me in many ways. It strengthened my belief that a person can be destroyed—but never defeated. Like someone who miraculously survives a plane crash, I’ve come to truly value life.

I am deeply grateful to the countless people around the world who have shown me solidarity and support. It touched my soul and gave me strength to know that, despite my imprisonment and the liquidation of my organization—the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions—the International Trade Union Confederation once again elected me as its Vice President at its congress in December 2022.

And in June of this year, the International Labour Organization reaffirmed my mandate as a member of its Governing Body. I fully intend to use my international status for the benefit of my homeland, Belarus, and for the country’s workers who have been stripped of their most basic rights and freedoms.

And, of course, to help secure the swift release of more than two dozen of my colleagues from the independent trade union movement who remain behind bars.

I will continue doing everything I can to ensure that my country, Belarus, gains the hard-won freedom it deserves—that the souls of Belarusians are freed from bondage, fear, and submission. And that the country’s guiding ideology becomes not one of confrontation and hatred among its citizens, but of mutual understanding and solidarity. This would truly reflect the spirit of the tolerant and peace-loving Belarusian people.”

Aliaksandr Yarashuk

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