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Natallia Radzina: By Not Recognizing Freedom Fighters as Prisoners of Conscience, You Help Tyrants

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Natallia Radzina: By Not Recognizing Freedom Fighters as Prisoners of Conscience, You Help Tyrants
Natallia Radzina

Why are human rights defenders so careful and selective in protecting their rights?

The authorities continue to put pressure on the activist of the civil campaign European Belarus Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk. Today it became known that the mother of two children was forcibly sent for a psychiatric examination. However, human rights activists still have not recognized the prisoner of the regime as a political prisoner. Natallia Radzina, editor-in-chief of Charter97.org, said that such actions only play into the hands of the regime:

- It's just meanness. There is no other way I can name the fact that a huge number of people arrested in Belarus for participating in the democratic movement and at protest rallies are not recognized as political prisoners in our country. I am disgusted with the slowness, scrupulousness, and captiousness with which our and Western human rights defenders evaluate people who today go to torture and prisons.

I know from my own experience how important it is to be recognized as a political prisoner during an arrest. I learned that Amnesty International had recognized me as a prisoner of conscience in the KGB prison from a warden. He whispered this to me when he was leading me into questioning. Then the hysterics of the head of the prison Arlou, who shouted that I would receive “a lot of money” for this “title,” confirmed my guess: it enrages them they have to ease the pressure. The fate of a person is being observed in the world, and if something happens, they will have to bear responsibility even to their own people, who want to “keep their face” before the West.

Today everyone is outraged by Amnesty International's attitude towards Alexei Navalny. Yes, this is the same meanness as the non-recognition of the protesting Belarusians as prisoners of conscience.

Today, taking advantage of impunity, they took the Brest activist of the European Belarus Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk to a psychiatric hospital in Minsk for “examination.” She was not recognized as a prisoner of conscience too. Why? Because she refused to let the police into the apartment with small children.

The authorities use the entire repressive arsenal of the Soviet model: prisons, punitive psychiatry, torture, beatings, dismissals, and expulsion from the country. Why are human rights defenders so careful and selective in protecting their rights?

By not recognizing freedom fighters as prisoners of conscience, you are helping tyrants.

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