Aleysa Ivanova wakes up every morning and wants to know when the knock on her door will come.
“You understand that you can be the next one. I wake up every day and think,’Maybe tomorrow, maybe today. Maybe they will come to me tonight’,” Ivanova (pseudonym) said.
As a journalist in Belarus, her coverage of the country was seen as a threat to the Belarusian regime. Alexander LukashenkoIvanova said that the repression has increased in recent weeks, and there are daily reports of other people being detained by national security forces.
Since July, state support has eliminated civil society and media organizations across the country. Belarus, Activists said.
Between July 14th and 16th, 60+ searches The residences and offices of Belarusian human rights organizations and their staff, including Viasna, Constanta, Legal initiative,as well as Belarusian Helsinki Committee, This Belarusian Journalists Association And many others. During the search, documents and IT equipment were confiscated, including laptops, mobile phones and computers.
Earlier, from July 8th to 9th and 16th, the authorities also raided the homes and premises of independent media organizations and their staff, and detained several journalists. More than 30 media workers and dozens of bloggers are still in prison.
By July 23, Amnesty International reported that At least 46 human rights organizations and other civil society organizations in Belarus have been shut downActivists now say that about 100 organizations had to close.
“This is not just a crackdown,” said Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch. “At a government meeting on July 22, President Lukashenko unapologetically described the closure of dozens of civil society groups as a’cleansing’-this is its essence and is designed to eliminate critics. Vicious and large-scale raids.”
According to statistics, in the past year International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and Viasna, a Belarusian organization that records torture, At least 35,000 peaceful protesters detained4,691 criminal court cases, 608 political prisoners and approximately 1,800 torture reports. Hundreds of human rights activists were persecuted, and thousands had to flee the country.
Ilya Nuzov, Head of FIDH East Europe He Zhongya Service Desk said that this deteriorating suppression may have been brewing for several months. “It’s not sudden. [The authorities] I have been preparing carefully. This is a natural process of the deterioration of the human rights situation in the country. “
Faced with such persecution, some human rights organizations whose staff have managed to escape are continuing their work abroad in neighboring countries such as Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. Despite the grim prospects, they are still provocative.
Victoria Fedorova, a human rights lawyer and head of the Legal Initiative, fled Belarus in March after one of her colleagues was detained and searched his house. She knew she would be next. She is now in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, but realizes that she is not safe there.
The head of the Belarusian House, Vitaly Shishov, is an organization that helped his countrymen escape. Was found dead On Tuesday, he was hanged from a tree in Kyiv Park, and the police now treat it as a murder investigation.
“Even if we fled in March, we knew that Ukraine was not safe,” Fedorova said. “We know that the Belarusian security forces can kidnap people. The hijacking incident [when a Ryanair flight was forced to land in Minsk so the leading opposition activist and journalist Roman Protasevich could be detained] It is very scary, because the regime does not respect international and domestic laws at all. They can do anything to detain dissidents. “
The home of Natallia Satsunkevich, who works for Viasna, was raided during a holiday in Egypt in February. She did not return to Belarus and is now based abroad. Seven of her colleagues have been detained. She said that the conditions in the prison are now very bad, almost like torture. “You can’t go for a walk without a shower. You sleep on a metal bed without pillows.”
She added that there are other activists still working secretly in Belarus, but in the current atmosphere of mass arrests, they are scared. “They are in a state of tension all day, but at the same time, these people are really brave and won’t stop.”
She added: “We will continue to work for all those who need our help and the imprisoned colleagues.”
Ivanova cancelled her qualification as a journalist last year, but her work continues. Many of her colleagues have fled the country or been detained. She paid attention to the strange car outside the window and posted nothing on social media. She said the current life is “depressing.”
“Now, the situation is very difficult, and it is getting worse. They are arresting people every day,” she said. “The suppression has not stopped.
“I know they might come to me, but I want to stay in Belarus and work there. I am doing my best to make things better.”
