"I Will Keep Fighting!": The Story of a Hrodna Woman From the "Belarusian Kin-Dza-Dza"

The girl, who was fined for white-red-white stripes on her pants, told why she decided to go all the way.

Last week, Hrodna policemen were able to surprise the whole of Belarus: a girl was detained in the center of the city for wearing trousers with white-red-white stripes. The arrest report says that "the color of the trousers violates the social and political situation." Liubou Sarlai spent more than a day in a temporary detention center and later was fined 580 rubles (20 basic units) for participating in an unauthorized mass event.

This is not the first time a girl has been detained. Belsat met with the woman from Hrodna and talked about her position.

"It is humiliating to delete your photos with symbols"

Liubou Sarlai is 32 years old, married, mother of two little boys, on maternity leave. By education, she is a psychologist, and she is engaged in amateur sports.

After the elections, she began to actively express her position - against violence, lies, and lawlessness. In August, Liubou went out with a flag for permitted rallies, including in the chain of solidarity, and actively publishes photographs with national symbols on her Instagram. At the same time, as the woman says, she is far from politics.

"I stand for the white-red-white flag and "Pahonia," as these are our national symbols, our history. I do not listen to all sorts of nonsense about the fact that the Nazis once walked under these flags. If a person is illiterate, then there is no point in proving something to him. This is mine, period," says Liubou.

After the arrests, Hrodna residents began to advise removing all photographs with national symbols, but she categorically refuses to do this.

"Why would I? I am not breaking the law, so why should I be afraid? It would be humiliating for me first to publish and then delete the photo. I sincerely believe in it. This is my opinion, which I do not impose on anyone. I also respect the opposite opinions, the same "yabatski," for example," says Liubou.

Her passion for national symbols, she says, was passed on to her from her father. As a child, she went with him to rallies in Hrodna Kalozhski Park, and she remembers the white-red-white flags, Zianon Pazniak.

"My father read Narodnaya Volya all his life; he loved history very much - we had a whole cupboard full of history books. It was quite natural for him, as it is for me now. My father was once in the Belarusian Popular Front; I also took his white-red-white badge from him. Now I walk with it. And at first, I went out with his white-red-white flag until I got my own," Liubou says.

"Political prisoners from prison are also trying to support us»

Liubou actively writes letters to political prisoners - she has already sent them to about 60 recipients. She says that the answers came from Pavel Seviarynets, Mikalai Statkevich, Ihar Losik. She tries to write to those whose stories were very touching or whose surnames are not heard often, for example, a girl who was sent to prison for a round dance.

"People need to be supported. I know for myself how important this is. When I got out of the detention center, they supported me very much, and they did not let me lose my faith. Therefore, now I open the list of political prisoners and write letters to them. Strangers supported me even more than my mother," says the Hrodna resident.

She writes to political prisoners about what she feels in her heart when looking at their photos. She is very worried about those who have small children left at large because she herself is a mother. Talking about this, she cannot hold back tears.

"Pavel Seviarynets is a very bright and honest person for me. I watched interviews with him, his mother, his wife. They are like holy people to me. What surprises me is that the political prisoners in their letters from prison are also trying to support us. Seviarynets, for example, wrote that it's easier for them - they are closed, and that's all, but we are here, at large, fighting, so we must hold out to the last. Statkevich writes that we will break through in any case. One feels that this man i a rock," says Liyubou.

"Are you saying you just put on your pants?"

For the first time, the woman was detained on October 31, when she was walking to a hardware store. On this day, only a few hours earlier and in a slightly different place, a rally and a procession took place in the city. The security forces ran up to the girl, twisted her arms, put her in a paddy wagon, and drove around the city for about an hour. Then the trial took place. In addition, several more protocols were drawn up for posting pictures on Instagram, where she stands with national symbols. However, during the trial, Liubou was acquitted: judge Alena Tolstsik-Samoila did not find corpus delicti in the girl's actions. Indeed, there was no evidence of the woman's participation in the rally; witnesses from the police said that they had not seen her.

"When I went to rallies in August, I thought about how someone can just detain a person. And then I experienced everything myself. And so they ran up from behind, started shouting at me: "Come on! What are you here, the smartest?" I was thrown into the "glass" in heels and a dress; there already a woman there. She said that she was returning from a dacha with her husband. The husband offered to go around, and she, they say, why, we are not doing anything bad. And so, they were detained," recalls Liubou Sarlai.

The woman won two trials against the police, but with a different judge, the third trial ended with a fine for her. On Sunday, January 17, she walked along the city's central street in warm pants with white-red-white stripes. The police officers saw sedition in this and detained the girl. Together with her, they seized an accidental woman who was walking nearby, and both were put in a police bus.

"I am sitting with this woman in a minibus. There is a bunch of AMAP officers nearby. That is, we, two women, are the reason why AMAP should be called? We were brought to the ROVD, registered. They tried to intimidate, conduct a preventive conversation. They ask: what, you want to say that you just put on your pants? I answer, yes, imagine, at minus 12 degrees, I just put on warm pants. These stripes are from the factory. I have them since 2014; I wore them when I was still pregnant. In my case, they make fools of themselves. It's a circus.

They ordered me to undress, pull off my panties, and sit down for examination. This is, of course, unpleasant. Then they threw me into a cell where there was an unpleasant smell. Well, nothing happened; I sat in this cell. Girls in Minsk have gone through a lot of things. Then they took me to the temporary detention facility on Haya. They treated me normally there; they gave me a mattress, although they might not have given it before the court's decision," says Liubou.

After a day in the IVS, a Skype trial took place. The girl tried to convey in court that she was charged with a mass event, picketing, but there were practically no people there, and she did not even open her mouth - all this can be traced from the street cameras. She was accused of shouting "Long live Belarus!" and behaved violently. The judge looked at everything, and nevertheless, found the Hrodna woman guilty.

"It is against this lie and lawlessness that I express my position. I am against the fact that our symbols are prohibited, that pensioners are grabbed for going out with umbrellas of colors that someone does not like. I had the Constitution with me during my arrest. While I was in the ROVD, I read to the officers a little about our rights, but they did not listen," the girl says.

At the police station, she caught an officer looking at her stories on Instagram. The woman often sends greetings to the police there. And one day in the middle of the week, Liubou was walking with an umbrella of white and red colors down the street, and a police bus drove up to her.

"A young AMAP officer leaned against the window and asked: well, can I take you to the ROVD? I say, no, thanks, I don't want. They left," the girl recalls.

"All this is temporary; it is impossible to live long in such a lie"

Liubou has two sons, 2 and 6 years old. She tries to protect them from what is happening in the country now. "I myself have matured to my position, and I want my children to draw their own conclusions and their own choices when they grow up. When the eldest son saw what was happening on TV, he asked: is the police bad? I explained to him that it was temporary; the men are fell ill with coronavirus. When children shout: "Lukashenka to the paddy wagon," I don't support that. Children may need to know what's going on, but they shouldn't be ahead of adults. It is us, adults, who have to deal with everything," says the woman.

For the sake of her children's future in Belarus, Liubou is ready to go to the end, as she wants them to grow up and live in a normal country.

"I remember how my father, when I was 7 years old, said that he went to rallies so that the children could live like human beings. And now I say the same to my children at the same age. They say to me: if you don't like it, leave. But why should I leave? I was born here, raised here; this is my country. Well. Go to hell. People are also sitting in the same isolation ward. All this is temporary; it is impossible to live long in such a lie. If I start something, I go to the end. And I don't change my shoes in the air. So I will keep fighting," Liubou summed up.