Volhya Brytsikava: undebding union leader behind bars

The name of Volha Brytsikava, the former union leader of the BNP workplace affiliate at the Naftan oil refinery, has become a symbol of fortitude and human dignity. Convicted on trumped-up charges and listed as a “terrorist”, she remains unbroken even behind the barbed wire.

Volha Brytsikava

The recently released political prisoner Larisa Schiryakova, a journalist, shared with the DW her recollections of the time she spent in the same convicts’ detachment with Brytsikava:

“Volha is a human being of the highest moral purity. Next to her, I felt like a hard-boiled cynic through-and-through. Volha sleeps well, she has a good appetite. But when her mother died, she took it extremely hard, lost much weight. Sometimes I wouldn’t even come near her as I could see that she was wandering about in some kind of prostration. Then, gradually, she climbed back to normal. But her convictions remained unshaken.”

Brytsikava’s fate is particularly vivid against the backdrop of massive repressions against independent trade unions in Belarus. Volha is one of those who openly spoke against the war, opposed the destruction of trade unions, the curtailment of labour rights and that is exactly what the regime has punished her for.

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