Conditions Nobel Laureate Ales Bialiatski Imprisoned In

The Horki colony is the worst among high-security zones.

On December 10, 2022, Ales Bialiatski, head of the human rights centre Viasna, won the Nobel Peace Prize. Now he is serving a 10-year sentence in Horki penal colony № 9. Radio Svaboda publishes about the conditions of one of the toughest zones in Belarus.

On March 3, 2023, Judge of Leninski District Court of Minsk Maryna Zapasnik sentenced the human rights activists of Viasna to long prison terms. Nobel laureate, Viasna chairman Ales Bialiatski got 10 years in a reinforced regime colony.

On May 2, the human rights defender was transferred from the pre-trial detention centre № 1 to the penal colony № 9 in Horki.

In early November, it became known that Ales was placed in a cell-type room. The human rights defender has not been allowed to see his lawyer for a long time.

Correctional colony No. 9 is located outside the town. It was built on the basis of a brick factory in 1957. The convicts used to work there for a long time. In the mid-1970s, the workshops were converted to metal processing. There are also woodworking, sewing and bakery shops in the colony.

There are 13 buildings in the colony, which can accommodate 1,500 prisoners. The zone is completely packed. Most often previously convicted persons are sent here to serve their sentences.

Previously, political prisoners Mikalai Dziadok, Dzmitry Dashkevich, Vasil Parfiankou, Mikhail Zhamchuzhny served their sentences in this colony. Parfiankou died in Ukraine, Dashkevich and Dziadok are back in the colonies. But their memoirs have remained.

"The Worst Among the High Security Zones"

Journalist Mikalai Dziadok has served his sentence in the Horki colony twice - he was jailed there in 2015 and 2022. Back at the trial in November 2021, Mikalai said that the law enforcers had threatened: "You will be killed by criminals in the Horki colony, and it will be written off as heart problems".

During his first term, in 2015, Mikalai was forced to take the extreme step of cutting his hands and stomach. Almost all the time he was either in the punishment cell or in a cell-type room.

"The zone in Horki has the worst conditions among the high-security zones. It is a real "press zone" for politicians. Dzmitry Dashkevich, Vasil Parfiankou, and me were taken there for a reason.

From the first minutes in the colony you get into the whirlpool of "surveillance from the distance". You are surrounded by informants who report your every step to the operatives. People with whom you socialise and drink tea are sent to the punishment cell, so that no one has any desire to socialise and become friends with you....

The main difference is that there, in Horki, the whole system, where not only beatings, not only punishment cells, but the whole complex works against an insubordinate convict. A complex, worked out over the years. Everything is put on a conveyor belt there," Mikalai Dziadok reported about 2015.

During the second term, in 2022, the situation in penal colony № 9, according to the political prisoner, even worsened. He was able to convey that "such things as now have never happened to me in this colony" - they started to put him in the punishment cell without any grounds. The administration collected so many "violations" on Dziadok that he was transferred to the Hrodna prison.

"A Room for Washing and a Room for Beating.

Dzmitry Dashkevich writes in his book "The Worm" (awarded the Prize for Prison Literature named after Aliakhnovich):

"The bathhouse in "Horki" fulfils two functions: a room for washing, where it is convenient to clean off the dirt once a week; and a room for beating, where it is even more convenient to beat a biological entity called "convict": firstly, no one hears, and secondly, blood is quickly washed off the walls and floor - only a couple of basins of water are needed".

Dashkevich also describes the industrial zone in "The Worm".

"The workshops of extracting non-ferrous metals (mainly copper and aluminium) from discarded cables accommodate a hundred or two grimy faces. Before work begins, a MAZ drives up to the shop and dumps a mountain of cables on which the convicts immediately rush from all sides, and it turns into a living organism: one is pulling a cable, another is pulling a convict by the leg, the third and the fourth are fighting - a civil war in which everyone is trying to get more loot is on.

After that the wrecked warriors are taking the trophies to the workshops and - all covered in fuel oil, solar oil and some other nasty stuff - they start tearing them up, extracting non-ferrous metal for the motherland... Cavemen of the Stone Age, though they have metal tools in their hands, and they are tearing up, tearing up, tearing up: the norm is 60 kg!

Cell-Type Room: Up at 5 a.m., Concrete Cage

At least 10 political prisoners are currently being held in the Horki colony: Ales Bialiatski, Ruslan Akostka, Pavel Aucharau, Dzianis Barsukou, Viktar Barushka, Vadzim Hurman, Dzianis Dzikun, Viachaslau Maliaichuk, Siarhei Ramanau, and Andrei Yurkou.

There is a separate building with the cell-type room and punishment cell with its own guards, and the political prisoners are frequent visitors there.

In early November, it was reported that Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski was punished by imprisonment in a cell-type room.

"If a person is in a cell-type room or punishment cell, he is not taken to work. The convict stays in a small cell all day long. The room is very cold, as there is concrete all around. The walls and floor are concrete, there is a small concrete stool. The bunks are unhooked only at night. It is not allowed to lie on them. Those who are punished with a cell-type room are given a mattress, a pillow, a blanket for the night, and they are taken away in the morning. No mattresses or bedding are "allowed" in the punishment cell: people are forced to sleep on bare wooden boards. There is nothing to do in the cell-type room and punishment cell, the cell is cold, so people are forced to move and walk all the time," a former prisoner told journalists on condition of anonymity about the conditions of detention there.

Here is how the regular schedule of the prisoners of the Horki colony looks like.

The prisoners who are placed in a cell-type room and punishment cell get up at 5 am (prisoners in detachments get up at 6 am).

Hygiene procedures begin at 5.10 a.m.: they bring shaving machines, washing, brushing teeth.

About 5.30-6.00 they bring breakfast. Usually it is porridge and tea. Occasionally there may be rice or millet porridge. Twice a week they give an egg.

The check-up is at 8:00 a.m. This is a search of the cell, inspection of things, search of the prisoner himself. During the inspection a bucket of chlorine is poured into the cell, which has to be cleaned up after the convoys leave.

11.00 - lunch. Soup, a second dish (usually porridge or pasta with stew), compote or kisel. Once a week there can be a cutlet.

16:00 - dinner. Again mostly porridge. Once a week there may be fish spines.

At 20:00 - a check again, which is called 'shmon'.

At 2100 - the lights are off. For the night they give you a mattress, a pillow and a blanket.

"No Rules are Observed"

As for walks, in a cell-type room they can occasionally take you to a small exercise yard. It looks a lot like the cells: concrete walls, but instead of a ceiling, there's a mesh, then bars and barbed wire through which you can see the sky.

According to the rules approved by the Department of Corrections, you can take soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, and a small towel with you from the detachment to a cell-type room. It is allowed to buy something once a month in the prison shop for 1 basic unit (37 roubles). You can write letters and receive letters from relatives.

Once a week a librarian comes to the cell-type room to change books.

Also, once a week they take you to the warehouse of personal belongings (where you can take a change of underwear, tea, biscuits (food is not allowed).

A former convict, recently released from the Horki colony, told Svoboda on condition of anonymity about some peculiarities of the detention of prisoners in a cell-type room, where he has been more than once.

"No rules regarding political prisoners are ever respected. I was considered an ordinary criminal, so it was easier for me. The political ones were hardly ever taken out for walks. They weren't allowed to visit the shop either.

About a year and a half ago, I was in the same cell with a political prisoner, and other convicts too. We used to feed them, give them coffee and tea, as there was a boiling pot in the cell, we shared the toilet paper. Yes, they were supposedly allowed to write letters. But never in my memory did they receive anything. There were books in the cell, the librarian brought them.

But then there were rumours that political prisoners were placed exclusively in solitary confinement. I don't know how they treat them there, but I believe that they are not allowed anything at all," said the former prisoner, who was serving a sentence under a criminal (not political) article.

The last letter from Ales Bialiatski came on October 18. He did not write anything about the colony and conditions of detention - otherwise the letter would not have been allowed by the censorship.