Human rights activist Yana Palyakova’s death anniversary

Human rights activist Yana Palyakova was driven to suicide in March 2009.

A wide range of cruel and mean methods was used against the young woman.

She went through arrests, tortures, criminal prosecution, moral terror and a baiting campaign by “Sovetskaya Belorussia”, Belarus’s largest newspaper and a propaganda tool of Lukashenka’s administration.

Lawyer Yana Palyakova was an activist of “Legal assistance to people” group, cooperated with other human rights organizations and was a member of the initiative team of Volha Kazulina (the daughter of a famous opposition politician) at the 2008 parliamentary election.

Accused of “false denunciation” against a police officer, who had beaten her, Palyakova was sentenced to two years in detention. Her friends recall she said some days before the death “The sentence will never take force”. Yana was struggling against injustice throughout her life and did not allow the unfair verdict to come into force.

The 36-year-old woman committed suicide in early hours of March 7, 2009. The tragedy happened in a flat she shared with her mother.

On March 6, 2009, the day before the tragedy, “Sovetskaya Belorussia” published a satirical article about Belarusian human rights activists mentioning Yana Palyakova among others. Yana’s friends think it was the final straw.

On March 18, the prosecutor’s office of Salihorsk refused to open a criminal case over Palyakova’s suicide. Officials did not find proofs the human rights activist was driven to suicide.

Yana Palyakova won the posthumous National Human Rights Award “For Personal Courage” founded by Charter’97.

Yana Palyakova was struggling for justice and helping ordinary people to defend their rights. Belarusian human rights activists do not live easy life, especially in regions, where every dissident faces close control from secret services.

The regime thinks it won – Yana Palyakova does not disturb dishonest policemen and unscrupulous judges and prosecutors. Her dedication and readiness to sacrifice herself for others, who sometimes seem indifferent and ungrateful, will always encourage fighters for freedom and human rights in Belarus. Yana Palyakova died unbowed.