"My Dream at the Moment Is for the Regime to Finally Collapse"

The story of Belarusians hiding from repression at the Swedish embassy in Minsk.

On September 11, 2020, in the midst of mass protests against falsification of the election results, two Belarusians came to the Swedish embassy in Minsk, says Current Time.

Vital and Uladzislau Kuznechyk, father and son, rang the bell and asked for protection, explaining that the police were looking for them. and they were afraid for their lives.

Having received a refusal, they climbed over the fence and stayed on the territory of the embassy.

A few days earlier, 47-year-old Vital Kuznechyk and his 29-year-old son Uladzislau participated in a march of solidarity in Vitsebsk: the security forces knocked the elder Kuznechyk to the ground, started beating him, and sprayed gas in his face. Uladzislau rushed to save his father, pushed the security forces; as a result, both managed to escape.

“I have never regretted that I beat off my father from the punitive officers of the security forces,” says Uladzislau Kuznechyk.

“I am proud of my son's deed, I would have done the same. I think many would do that,” says Vital Kuznechyk, whose beating by police in September 2020 was caught on video.

A criminal case was immediately opened against both men, in which they face up to six years in prison. After the protest, the men went into hiding for several days; having learned about the surveillance of their relatives, the father and son went to the Swedish embassy.

"They'll kill us"

“They didn’t let us in right away,” Uladzislau recalls. "Maybe they didn’t believe it. When we arrived at the embassy, they told us through the intercom: "We will not let you in." We said: "What to do? They will kill us.""

Kuznechyk climbed over the fence and hid under the stairs on the embassy grounds. From there, they recorded a video message. At that time, AMAP and journalists arrived at the building.

“People are found with their heads pierced, hanged. AMAP has cordoned off the embassy and is waiting for the Swedish embassy to hand us over to them. I hope this will not happen,” Uladzislau Kuznechyk said in the video.

At that time, at least three people were believed to have died as a result of the suppression of protests in Belarus. One of the demonstrators, Mikita Kraytsou, was found hanged in a forest on the outskirts of Minsk. The deaths of several more people were also associated with repressions against those who did not agree with the falsification of election results.

Kuznechyk sat under the stairs until 10 pm, then they were allowed to enter the embassy building and immediately warned that they could not stay there for a long time - Swedish law does not provide for a procedure for obtaining political asylum at the embassy.

The very next day, legal assistance to Kuznechyk was offered by a lawyer living in Europe, Vadzim Drazdou, who himself is from Belarus. To protect Uladzislau and Vital, he sent a letter first to the European Court of Human Rights and then to the UN Committee against Torture.

“Today we understand that, in Belarus, in all politically motivated cases, people are tortured while in prison, or torture conditions are created for them - conditions that we can today equate to torture,” says Vadzim Drazdou.

On October 1, 2020, the Secretariat of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights sent a letter from the Committee against Torture on the situation with Kuznechyk. Vadzim Drazdou believes that, in fact, this obliges not to expose Kuznechyk outside the embassy territory.

"We know very little about what's going on."

Vadzim Drazdou says he does not see the Swedish authorities doing anything to resolve the situation.

“I do not exclude that the embassy is simply biding its time - maybe they (Kuznechyk) will someday not have enough patience, and they will voluntarily leave. Then the Swedish government will say: "Well, we didn't kick them out, they left by themselves." And what happened to them later is a completely different question,” the lawyer explains.

The head of the Swedish Organization for the Promotion of Democracy in Eastern Europe Martin Uggla hopes that Swedish diplomats are holding secret negotiations with the Belarusian authorities in order, for example, to get guarantees and take Kuznechyk to Lithuania or Poland.

“But we know very little about what's going on because the Swedish authorities don't say anything about it at all. They say that they are working on a solution to this problem, but, of course, we do not know what kind of solution they are talking about,” says the Swedish human rights activist.

“It is very important now that we do not forget about Belarus, that the European Union and Sweden continue to help people who are now fighting for democracy, for freedom, so that this can be done not only in words but also with concrete actions,” Uggla says.

Current Time sent a request to the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and received the following response: "The men entered the territory of the Swedish Embassy in Minsk without invitation and permission. The two people said they wanted to apply for asylum in Sweden. However, asylum applications made at the Swedish Embassy cannot be accepted. We are constantly working on this issue and are in dialogue with these two people. We cannot go into the details of our work."

In 2014, a similar story happened in Azerbaijan. Journalist and human rights activist Emin Huseynov, a critic of President Ilham Aliyev, was accused of illegal entrepreneurship and tax evasion. Huseynov took refuge in the Swiss Embassy in Baku, believing that he was being persecuted for political reasons.

Negotiations between Switzerland and Azerbaijan lasted almost a year; as a result, the human rights activist left Baku on the plane of the Swiss minister.

"I have oncology"

At the embassy, Kuznechyk feel safe. They were given a room with beds, shower, toilet, washing machine, microwave oven, electric kettle. For sports - horizontal bar, barbell, kettlebells. “We cook the food ourselves, we even bake pies,” says Uladzislau Kuznechyk. TV and computer are prohibited, father and son follow the news using mobile phones.

“The main problem we have is that both my father and I need a medical examination. I have oncology,” notes Uladzislau. In 2019, doctors discovered that he had a malignant neoplasm of the appendix.

“I need to be examined every six months,” continues Kuznechyk Jr. "I also have partial atrophy of the optic nerve. This was after an injury as a teenager. Every six months I have to go to the hospital so that my vision does not deteriorate. I can go blind, in principle, in one eye."

“My father also had a problem here: he had a bad stomach ache, he didn’t eat anything for a week, he had a fever. We also talked about this to all the employees of the embassy, they passed it on to the Swedish authorities. But the Swedish authorities said: "We can not help you." We also say that we will not go anywhere from here, we will be here until the very end,” adds Uladzislau.

Lawyer Vadzim Drazdou asked the Swedish Embassy to provide doctors to Kuznechyk. “Legally, Sweden has no jurisdiction over your clients, and the requested medical care is beyond the interim measure specified by the Committee against Torture,” they replied. “In fact, the Swedish Embassy in Minsk cannot provide your clients with the necessary medical assistance.”

Uladzislau admits: “We have no goal of obtaining political asylum. We didn't think the regime would last that long. We thought that it might last until the New Year, well, until spring [2021] at most, and we will get out of here, stay in our country with our family. But, as you can see, everything dragged on, and it is not known how long it will last."

In Belarus, Kuznechyk Jr. has a wife and two children. Before the 2020 protests, she and her father were in small business.

<>"The dream is for the regime to collapse"

“I consider this government illegitimate since they falsified the 2020 elections, blatantly announced unrealistic percentages — more than 80% [for Lukashenka],” says Vital Kuznechyk.

"I went to protest because I was thinking about the future of my children. I don’t want them to live and have no choice. When this right is taken away from you, and they want to make a slave out of you - this is not life," explains Uladzislau. "It is an obvious fact that Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya won. There are data from the Golos platform (voters sent photos of ballots and copies of protocols from polling stations there), there are acquaintances. Out of hundreds of friends and acquaintances, maybe a couple of people voted for Lukashenka. And when these atrocities happened, I think very few people stayed for him."

“Now the situation in Belarus is very difficult - there are repressions, civil society is being destroyed, independent media are being destroyed. At the moment, we dream of Lukashenka resigning, so that fair independent elections will take place, in which we, the people, will determine a worthy leader for ourselves. We want to live in a free democratic country and not depend on one person who has taken power into his own hands,” Vital Kuznechyk shares his dreams.

“My dream at the moment is for the regime to finally collapse,” says Uladzislau. “To release all political prisoners, so that everyone who is involved in torture, murder, and repression will be held accountable.”