‘For You,This Is Eternal Stigma’: Journalist Ihar Ilyash Turns To Investigators With Open Letter

These people, following a criminal order, kidnapped his wife.

Husband of Katsiaryna Andreyeva Ihar Ilyash wrote a letter to the investigators of the Frunzenski district department of the Investigatory Committee of Minsk, captain of justice Ihar Kurylovich and Lieutenant Ihar Kudzela, who were in charge of the case of the Belsat journalists.

The text of the letter was published by the website of Belsat TV channel:

- Ihar Viktaravich, Ihar Uladzimiravich!

Today exactly two months have passed since the day when you brought charges against my wife Katsiaryna Andreyeva under Part 1 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code (“organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order”) for a live broadcast from the Square of Changes on November 15. The accusation against my wife is completely absurd.

In reality, Katsiaryna was imprisoned only for showing the whole world the confrontation between the security forces and the defenders of the people's memorial to Raman Bandarenka. I don’t know what you did before, and whether you had to ruin human lives by the orders of your superiors. But you were definitely not born criminals. You became them. And now I will tell you how it happened.

Any repressive machine, even the most cruel and soulless, consists of people. Moreover, most of them are not maniacs, psychopaths and sadists at all, but quite normal people who commit terrible acts solely under the influence of the situation - they just “do their job”. This type of monstrous normality is best described by Hannah Arendt using the example of Adolf Eichmann.

I have no doubt that this is precisely your case. I am willing to believe that outside of work, both of you are the nicest people who care about your loved ones, respect your elders and help your friends. In any case, outside of your service it would hardly have occurred to you to kidnap two girls, take them to Zhodzina, and keep them in prison for two months. But at work, you do just that. In psychology, this is called “separate thinking” - when the norms and principles of a person work in one area of their life, but do not work at all in another.

It all started when one day you became part of the system - that is, you entered the service in the Investigatory Committee. Of course, you did not become criminals at this moment, but you have already undertaken to obey the rules of this system within the framework of the proposed role. At first, you followed mostly reasonable and objective requirements, which only strengthened your confidence in the need to obey the rules. But then the demands became more and more unfair and excessive.

Finally, you receive an openly criminal order, but the very fact of the order allows you to absolve yourself of responsibility - this is not your initiative, you simply obey the leadership. Perhaps even the authorities literally said this to you: they say, we take all responsibility upon ourselves. Yes, and you do it ostensibly for the sake of a high goal - the state, public order, etc.

Of course, this is not enough - you are perfectly aware that you are committing a bad deed. But, first of all, the “exit cost” is very high - first of all, psychologically. You have already become a part of it, and agreed to follow the rules. And your career directly depends on the implementation of these rules. To say no is scary now. And you, apparently, are not very courageous people.

Secondly, euphemisms come to the rescue. You do not kidnap girls and do not take hostages, but “conduct an investigation” and “choose a restraint within the framework of a criminal case”. Add more irrelevant formulations from the Code of Criminal Procedures, and now the real picture has already been thoroughly disguised with the help of semantic transformations. Now it’s not innocent victims in front of you, but “suspects” and “accused”.

But this is not enough, because deep down you understand everything perfectly well. Therefore, you urgently need to denigrate your victim and blame them for what is happening. Of course, this is not an easy task. If you are looking at anarchists with Molotov cocktails or football fans, the dehumanization process would have been easier. And here - two young girls, journalists, who simply honestly performed their professional duties.

Therefore, you are already rushing into a complete absurdity - say in the eyes of Katsiaryna's relatives that she is ostensibly not a journalist, that she did not fulfill any professional duties in the Square of Changes. Not only is this a blatant lie, but it is also devoid of any sense: as if non-journalists can be illegally imprisoned.

But this is objectively all that you can tell her relatives: if you try to formulate what Katsiaryna's “criminal offense” is, you probably will not be able to restrain your laughter, it will look so stupid. But you consider yourself smart people.

Therefore, you are in a hurry to find refuge in another thought - we are small people, nothing depends on us, the court decides everything. And indeed: if the prosecutor's office and the court turn a blind eye to that dummy that you slip them, then what can we talk about at all? ..

This is all the same delegation of responsibility, but only on a larger scale. Although no less than universal: I have no doubt that the prosecutor who sent the case to the court similarly shifted responsibility to you and his superiors, thought about the “exit price” and hid behind euphemisms. Besides, what's the difference? If not you, then they will find another who will do it. And maybe it will make it even worse, but you, they say, at least will not try too hard. After all, that's exactly what you think, right? ..

Ihar Viktaravich, Ihar Uladzimiravich! Your story is a sad story of personal self-destruction. Moreover, self-destruction is irreversible. And now I'm not talking about the legal consequences of your actions (although they will soon be), but about purely human ones. And this is much worse than those three years of imprisonment with which you threaten Katsiaryna and Darya.

Yes, unfortunately, your story is not unique - countless people have gone this way. But you will not be able to get completely lost in this stream: you were the investigators in the case of Katsiaryna Andreyeva. And this is an eternal stigma.

Katsiaryna has already gone down in history - and now she will pull you along. In her future biographies, you are guaranteed a place - in one line, separated by commas, but still. There is hardly anyone who will understand the motives of your actions, as I did now. No, your names will automatically arouse disgust and contempt in people. And to develop such a reflex in people is worth a lot.

You hardly wanted such fame for yourself. But you will get used to it. It was only your choice. Even though you now convince yourself that you were only following orders.

P.S. Katsiaryna in one of the letters told that you promised her: they say, no one will cover her case, because it is “ordinary hooliganism”. I don't know who of you two directly voiced this nonsense. But do you now understand how wrong you were? Or did you try to calm yourself in this way? ..