"The City Indeed Passed into the Hands of the Protesters"

The history of the revolution in Pinsk through the eyes of a local activist.

Pinsk public activist, lawyer, head of the Polesskaya Dobrota charity organization Alena Shymolina was forced to leave Belarus through the persecution of the authorities, Radio Svaboda reports.

During the election campaign, she helped the initiative group of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and was an observer at the elections in Pinsk. The activist claims that she managed to take abroad evidence of the violence of the security forces against the Pinsk residents and wants to bring the perpetrators to justice. The woman left with her underage daughter in October for Ukraine, then moved to Poland, now is in the Czech Republic.

What happened in Pinsk in August 2020

- In Pinsk, people yearned for change. I was an independent observer at polling station # 17 for a week. On August 9, I was kicked out of the precinct after I declared that I had the right to be present at the opening of the ballot boxes. When thrown out, the district police officer hit me with a truncheon. After 2 hours, the protocol was posted, according to which Lukashenka won, and it did not correspond to any number of the poll I conducted. According to my data, 1,450 people voted at the polling station, about 700 people voted for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, about 380 for Lukashenka, the rest of the votes were proportionally divided between other candidates.

People dissatisfied with the official results began to gather in the central square of Pinsk and demand a final protocol. There were a lot of us, people stood peacefully, on the contrary - the security forces. The chairman of the executive committee came out. Five "parliamentarians" were sent to him, who demanded a final protocol since we did not agree with the figures in the protocols that were posted at the polling stations. After 2 hours, the "parliamentarians" were released from the building, the protocols were never shown to them. And then the confrontation began.

"The city has indeed been in our hands for several hours"

- Before that, we laughed, because the city is small, we are in kinship - we all know each other. The officers of the Pinsk District Department of Internal Affairs stood behind the conscripts. They set up a cordon in front of us and ordered the soldiers to march on us. And people, through the line of soldiers of the internal troops, talked with officers, fellow compatriots-Pinsk residents.

A spontaneous rally began, people began to speak out, saying that they wanted to know the truth about the election results. Finally, the assault on the executive committee began. We held together, broke through the line of internal troops, and began to squeeze the officers out to the river, in the end, they fled. We wanted peace, we didn't want slaughter. We came to the executive committee in T-shirts, shorts, slates, peaceful people without weapons. The city was indeed in our hands for several hours...

Local security forces did not want to use violence

- As it later became known, the city leadership called the Ministry of Emergency Situations (we have three detachments), but they did not come to the aid of the Pinsk GUVD, refused to go out against the people. After 2 am, an AMAP brigade was brought to Pinsk by 3 helicopters from outside Minsk. They had a command for brutal suppression... Now there are 14 people from Pinsk among the political prisoners.

On August 10, the judge of the criminal collegium of Pinsk and the Pinsk region, Aliaksei Patsko, came to the courtroom, looked at the people who had been brought in after a night of detention, compiled folders, and left the courtroom. On the same day, he filed a letter of resignation. Thus, there was a judge in Pinsk - "the one who did not shoot."

Forced decision to leave Belarus

- Our charitable organization provided assistance to victims of repression. I took the documentary evidence of the violence with me. These are the dictaphone records of all the victims who turned for help to Polesskaya Dobrota and certificates from the trauma center of the local hospital. I want to disclose all this information to initiate a case under universal jurisdiction. Even if in ten years, but all the guilty must be brought to justice.

In Pinsk, protests began to subside in September due to violent repression, and my 12-year-old daughter and I went to Minsk for rallies. After that, they began to come to her school from the guardianship authorities. They put pressure on me too. I was detained at work and led in handcuffs across the city to the court to be tried under Article 23.34. A decision on 15 days of arrest had already been prepared for me, but because I had my daughter's birth certificate with me, the judge "rewrote" the decision for a fine of 30 base units.

From the court, they immediately brought me to the prosecutor's office, where they issued a warning for participating and for holding a rally (and I was the host of rallies in support of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya). I felt it was dangerous for me to stay. The volunteers drove me to the Homel border, then I walked with my child 4 kilometers along the neutral strip at night. I had a backpack, $ 200, and documents proving violence against 65 people. I know that people who have been tortured will remember not the ice rinks, but the innocent blood of children...