Released Belarusian Political Prisoners Held Their First Press Conference In Vilnius

Online streaming.

Today, the first joint press conference of Belarusian political prisoners who were released yesterday was held in Vilnius.

The website Charter97.org carried a text online broadcast of the conference.

16:00 The political prisoners also answered questions from the audience.

- Were you pressured to cooperate with the administration?

Bondaruk Vitaly, blogger: Yes, this is their job. They use different tortures, the most popular one is chlorine torture. It depends on the person, they try to break the weakest.

Larisa Shchiryakova: I was offered, but I said: no, let me die in the status of a decent person.

- Some people had their passports taken away. How many people were left without documents, how did it happen?

Nikolai Dedok: When we were handed over to the border, all 13 people who were in the KGB pre-trial detention center did not have a passport in their personal files.

Sergei Sparish: They took not only passports, but also many personal belongings - they took away my wedding ring and 9 books.

- On September 3, Andrei Podnebny was found hanged. What do you know about it?

- This information was hidden and hushed up for a long time. It is only known that he could not do it himself, he was in a normal psychological state, had good relations in the team.

What do you plan to do?

Nikolai Dedok: I want to revive my social networks, engage in political education and continue doing what I was doing five years ago before the arrest.

- How is your health now?

Gennady Fedynich: Thank you, they can't wait!

- How do our women feel in detention?

Larisa Shchiryakova: I was lucky to meet Marina Zolotova. She has a good attitude, plays sports, and enjoys authority in her squad. Katya Andreeva - always beautiful, but already very tired of sitting in the colony (already 5 years). I would like to add that Nasta Loiko is now in the SCT. I hope that this is already the light at the end of the tunnel, and soon they will all be released.

15:40 Andrei Krylov, former political prisoner: We have political prisoners who are in a separate branch and are not mentioned - these are priests. It is necessary to appeal to the Vatican. The Catholic Church is considered Polish, so the burden on the priests is strong. They are being persecuted. Please pay attention to this!

15:22 Alexandr Mantsevich, publisher from Molodechno: We remain political prisoners because we cannot return to our homeland, home, to our families. I would like to remind about one prisoner who is still there: Vyacheslav Oreshko, born in 1955, a trade union leader, was on the same case with Hennadiy Fedynich. He completely lost his eyesight in prison. If he himself walks down the corridor, he breaks into blood, and he is not the only one who lost his health there. We need to remember these people and their fates.

15:11 Larisa Shchiryakova, journalist: Donald Trump is now my president. I would also like to thank my relatives, incredible Belarusians - for their support, broadcasts and other help. I will not forget one transfer - two apples from probably a pensioner, I even had tears in my eyes. In the pre-trial detention center I studied languages - Spanish, Italian and French, as well as psychology. I also taught the people in the detention unit to play chess, organized a poetry evening, where I read my favorite poet Anatoliy Sys "Garatsi kamyani v mamim logishchy". Singing helped me a lot: we did it every day in the cell. I will not forgive this regime: I lived in hell for 2 years, under the constant threat that I would be arrested. And I will not forgive them for torturing my son: all the searches were conducted in front of him, when I was imprisoned, they came to him, checked his computer, interrogated him without a lawyer, forced him to be a witness against me.

15:00 Alexandr Yaroshuk, leader of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BCDTU): I want to bow low to the Belarusian people, who gave us strength. Today we continue the glorious, centuries-old history of our people, and tears came to my eyes when I heard today "Magutny Bozha" performed by "Volnaga Choru". Your mission in life can be considered successfully accomplished if you have become an example for your children - and I was convinced of that. The toughest, creepiest SHIZO in Belarus is in the Shklou zone. I thought that I would not survive the first night there - but I survived it at the age of 73, and when I did, I realized that no one could get the upper hand over me. And when I got out, I said, "Go far, far away, all of you." And I started singing. And what was the reaction of the guards? Uh, nothing. Silence. Because they're afraid. They're terrified and they're just hiding under their masks. So who's the boss of the country if they're hiding? They know that retribution will come. And we will come there - because we are real masters of our beloved Belarus, and we will not spare even our lives for it.

14:53 Gennady Fedynich, chairman of the independent trade union REP: Political prisoners are singled out as a separate group, called "bchbshniki", I don't know what they are guided by. But I can say: how you treat yourself, you will be treated the same way. Prisoners who had been in prison for 15-20 years even addressed me by my patronymic. The prison authorities were scared, thinking that I could create a union there.

Gennady Fedynich also read a poem written in prison. He also thanked Donald Trump, EU authorities, Poland, Lithuania, human rights activists and called for action until all political prisoners are released and no one new goes to jail.

14:42 Nikolai Dedok, activist and blogger: I would like to thank my friends and comrades-in-arms in the anarchist movement, as well as EU countries, especially Lithuania and Poland. Many thanks also to Donald Trump, who, despite the remoteness of his country, remembers the political prisoners in Belarus. The world simply cannot imagine the scale of torture and abuse of people in Belarus. If I started to tell about it, three conferences would not be enough. I spent a year in a detention center, and healthy grown men literally went crazy before my eyes. They would just start howling and calling for their mom in the middle of the night. Torture is not only physical beatings. People in prisons in Belarus are brought to destruction in a sophisticated manner. I call on the world, despite the war in Ukraine, to pay attention to this. These years will go down in history as the new 37th. I urge: don't stop, there are people sitting there, they must be saved!

14:25 Sergei Sparish, activist of the "Narodnaya Hramada": We don't know what's going on with Nikolai Statkevich now. I crossed paths with him just a day ago, and he said: the nation in Belarus has already been formed. And if there is a nation, we need to fight for the state, we need to expand the space of freedom. And one should not be afraid to go beyond the red lines. And the nation needs a leader, and the leader can't be somewhere in exile. That's why Nikolai Statkevich stayed in Belarus. If a man has set himself as our moral leader, we should unite and not divide the skin of the unkilled Lukashenko, but protect our leader.

14:10 At the beginning of the press conference Svetlana Tikhanovskaya spoke: "Thank you for standing up and enduring."

Tihanovska also thanked US President Donald Trump, the European Union, Lithuanian authorities and international human rights activists for helping to free political prisoners. She also emphasized that it was not a release, but a forced deportation from Belarus, and we are all worried about the fate of Nikolai Statkevich, who refused to leave Belarus and now his whereabouts are unknown.

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