!An article from 2019.
A political prisoner — a person held in custody or serving a sentence of imprisonment, or committed to compulsory treatment in a psychiatric hospital, whose case has a clear political component, for example, opposition to the current authorities, whether in the form of non-violent action or armed struggle.
A political prisoner may be someone arrested on charges of political activity, or on other, often false, charges.
It should be said right away that there are no single criteria by which a person can be classed as a political prisoner. However, in October 2012 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for the first time approved relatively general criteria for determining whether a person’s prosecution and detention are politically motivated. Namely:
Using several current cases as examples, we will show that the practice of politically motivated persecution is widespread in Belarus.
We should begin with a brief overview of the region’s foreign policy situation. First of all, it should be noted that the Republic of Belarus is a member of the OSCE, the CIS and the UN. At the international level, Belarus cooperates with the Council of Europe and therefore has certain obligations regarding the observance and protection of human rights. Its economic and political dependence on Russia undoubtedly worsens the human rights situation in Belarus. Unlike Europe, whose political leaders try to pretend that they care about the fate of Belarusian dissidents, for the Russian leadership this issue is not on the agenda at all, since the number of political prisoners in Russia itself has long exceeded several hundred.
The fact that Lukashenka’s dictatorship has to manoeuvre on questions of democracy in its dealings with European leaders and institutions sets the context for the state’s domestic policy.
As a result, most criminal cases in Belarus that ended in fines, imprisonment or restricted freedom did not outwardly look like open persecution of a person for political reasons. Most often these were articles with extremely vague wording, such as «malicious hooliganism»:
Article 339 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus: Deliberate actions grossly violating public order and expressing obvious disrespect for society, accompanied by violence or the threat of violence, or by the destruction of or damage to another’s property, or distinguished in their content by exceptional cynicism.
Depending on the circumstances of the case and the wishes of the repressive bodies, this article carries up to 10 years’ imprisonment. Recently, Article 364, «Violence or the threat of violence against an internal affairs officer», has become a popular article of the Criminal Code for politically active people. This is primarily due to the number of unlawful arrests, including at peaceful protests, where police officers often carry out detentions using violence, without identification insignia, out of uniform and without showing any documents. As a result, people try to defend themselves by breaking free from the hands of what they take to be thugs. In such cases even a torn jacket or cuff can become grounds for putting a person in prison, not to mention self-defence and attempts to stand up for a victim in street situations.
Dzmitry Paliyenka, an anarchist and social activist from Minsk, was sentenced in 2016 to 2 years’ imprisonment, suspended, for trying to stop a police officer from beating a participant in «Critical Mass» (a cyclists’ movement). During the political crisis of 2017 and the mass protests connected with it, he was detained. The court revoked the suspension of his sentence, and Dzmitry spent the next 1.5 years in the Babruisk penal colony (he spent six months in a pre-trial detention centre while under investigation). He was recognised as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
Paliyenka is currently back in a pre-trial detention centre awaiting trial. He is charged under 4 criminal articles: Part 3 of Article 339 of the Criminal Code «Particularly malicious hooliganism», Article 341 of the Criminal Code «Desecration of structures and damage to property» for the graffiti «Cops kill people», to which another episode was later added, Article 130 «Incitement of racial, national or other hatred, including against social groups» and Article 369 «Insulting a representative of the authorities» (for the first time in the country’s history this article is being applied in connection with criticism of the Interior Ministry).
The events in Ukraine in 2014 pushed the Belarusian authorities towards mass repression against all informal movements and associations. The result was the high-profile «anti-fascists case», which was based on testimony extracted through pressure, threats and torture. For a broken window in a trolleybus, which was paid for twice, and with no victims in the case, six young men received from 4 to 12 years’ imprisonment under Part 3 of Article 339 of the Criminal Code.
On 15 March 2017, Sviataslau Baranovich saw a group of grown men in tracksuits beating people and dragging them out of a trolleybus with brute force. Trying to stand up for them, he struck the aggressors several times. It later turned out that they were police officers who, as part of mass repression, were detaining with particular brutality anarchists who were trying to leave after a peaceful rally. Baranovich was sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment.
These are just a few high-profile recent cases with a pronounced political context. But the way Belarusian law is applied to persecute political activists and deprive them of liberty speaks volumes.
First of all, all residents of our country, and above all its politically engaged part (human rights defenders, social activists, civic initiatives, parties and organisations, informal associations), should acknowledge a number of points:
How does political prisoner status affect a person’s fate, and how, in our view, should the question of granting this status be approached in a given case?
We should start with why political prisoner status is needed at all. In any state, regardless of its political system, people who have been criminally prosecuted are stigmatised. The statist morality of modern states stigmatises a person who has in one way or another had problems with the legal system of their country of residence. Usually such a person remains on the margins of society, unable to find decently paid work, subjected to bias from state bodies and the banking system, and shunned by others as a «criminal».
Supporters of dictatorship and of curtailing civil rights and freedoms understand all this perfectly well. In Belarus there is even a name for this phenomenon – the «wolf ticket». That is, in our country a person who has been prosecuted under the Criminal Code is barred from social recognition, career advancement and a peaceful life.
Recognition of a political motive in an individual’s case should be the moment their good name is cleared in the eyes of society. Following the example of how people treat political prisoners in countries with a developed culture of protest and political awareness, our society must also stop supporting the paradigm of persecution. Rehabilitation in the eyes of society and the provision of help are essential for those who have been deprived of freedom, tortured and maimed. In countries with harsh regimes, like Belarus, the whole burden of responsibility for bringing dissidents back into society falls on society itself, since the authorities’ aims are diametrically opposed.
That is the main reason why recognising a person as a political prisoner is so important. Ideally, it should remove the stigma of being a «criminal» and support the person morally, ideologically and materially.
However, it should be noted that because of a heavy historical legacy, as well as 25 years of dictatorship, our society treats «politicals» worse than murderers. And this situation undoubtedly has to change.
But rehabilitation in the eyes of society is not the only reason why it is important to recognise the political nature of a particular case. Another important factor is media support from international bodies. After all, few will want to bother with ordinary criminals, hooligans, alcoholics and rapists — which is exactly how the Belarusian state so skilfully portrays the country’s political activists.
Given Belarus’s international position, it becomes clear that there is a very real opportunity to influence the repressive structures of the Interior Ministry and the courts through pressure from democratically minded European politicians and organisations. This, in turn, is not just a game of tug-of-war on the international stage, but the fate of specific people. How many years a person will spend behind bars in deprivation and under torture depends on the decisions of small organisations and bodies, and often of particular individuals.
In addition, recognition as a political prisoner and the accompanying media support can provide a person with material support. It is no secret how much money goes on legal aid, without which activists’ criminal cases would simply turn into closed-door death sentences. A huge share of funds also goes on supporting a person in prison: food and personal hygiene products, clothing, purchases at the prison or colony shop. The families of imprisoned activists often find themselves with practically no means of subsistence and deep in debt bondage, trying to help their loved ones whom the state has deemed undesirable. The status of «political prisoner» can help if initiatives or organisations appear that are ready to raise funds for the needs of imprisoned dissidents, both inside the country and abroad.
So, once again, why political prisoner status matters to a dissident:
How can one tell whether a particular case has a political context?
At the beginning of the article we already pointed out that a certain approach has now been developed for examining whether a criminal prosecution involves an intent to isolate a person because of their activism or as a form of discrimination.
While for the community of political activists and members of opposition parties and initiatives it is most often quite obvious whether or not a person is being persecuted for political reasons, many human rights organisations usually speak and act within a certain discourse: in most cases, people are recognised as political prisoners if they fall under the definition of a «prisoner of conscience».
Let us recall that this is the «strictest» criterion:
A prisoner of conscience is a person whose physical freedom is restricted by imprisonment or otherwise because of their political, religious or other beliefs, or because of their ethnic origin, sex, race, language, national or social origin, family ties, property status, sexual orientation or other personal characteristics. However, people who resort to violence or advocate violence and hatred are not considered prisoners of conscience.
The definition above shows that under the extreme conditions of persecution by the Belarusian security services, whose officers often act as in Sviataslau Baranovich’s case (without showing documents, without uniforms, using violence), a person becomes completely defenceless.
As we wrote above, the state’s repressive institutions learn lessons from openly political criminal cases against politicians and activists. Accordingly, any undesirable activist today most often becomes the victim of provocations by the Interior Ministry or the KGB, the aim of which is to force the person to use violence to protect themselves, their family or defenceless people being beaten or maimed before their eyes.
The practice of recognising people as political prisoners solely on the basis of the «prisoner of conscience» definition is outdated and only gives the punitive bodies a free hand against those who defend the ideals of freedom and justice. It also encourages very serious self-censorship and self-restraint in standing up to the open lawlessness of those in power. Weighing up the situation, a person understands that trying to stop violence or a conflict may become a criminal offence for HIM, and that he will be left alone against the system — and there is nothing attractive about that.
As an initiative, we propose nothing new beyond what has already been agreed in PACE, namely the use of the established criteria for recognising someone as a political prisoner, when:
- The detention violates the basic guarantees of the European Convention on Human Rights, in particular the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression and information, and freedom of assembly and association;
- The detention is imposed purely for political reasons (no offence was committed);
- The length or conditions of detention are disproportionate to the gravity of the offence;
- The detention is discriminatory in comparison with other persons;
- The detention is the result of proceedings that were clearly unfair and connected with the political motives of the authorities.
The only thing we insist on, and on which most active political and social activists will support us, is that each individual case of persecution should be considered on its own merits.
Objectively, there are not so many political organisations and civic initiatives in Belarus that those interested in the development of our region would lack the time to examine in detail each case of criminal prosecution of a particular activist.
By using the above PACE criteria for defining a political prisoner, setting up, where necessary, special commissions of members of various political parties and groups to rule out political bias, and going beyond the «strict» criterion of «prisoner of conscience», the members of our campaign are confident that together we could take a firm step towards freedom in our country, giving confidence to everyone who disagrees with the outrages of the dictatorship.