Liubou Luniova: “A government afraid of freedom instinctively reaches for the baton”

This inter­view is part of the col­lec­tion “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion”, a liv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny to the cre­ative and civic pres­ence of those who have not lost their voice even in exile.

Liubou Lunio­va. Gdan­sk, 2023. Pho­to: from per­son­al archive

The col­lec­tion tells the sto­ry of the lau­re­ates of the “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” award, found­ed by the Belaru­sian PEN in part­ner­ship with the Human Rights Cen­ter “Vias­na”, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, Press Club Belarus and Free Press for East­ern Europe endow­ment fund. The col­lec­tion will be pre­sent­ed on Novem­ber 15, 2025 at 5:00 PM dur­ing a dis­cus­sion with the lau­re­ates of the “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” award at the Euro­pean Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cen­ter (Europe­jskie Cen­trum Sol­i­darnoś­ci, Gdańsk, pl. Sol­i­darnoś­ci 1).

There are miniskirts, Vladimir Vysotsky,[1] Bulat Okudzhava,[2] The Rolling Stones — and they lecture us about socialist competition

Dur­ing our Sovi­et child­hood and ado­les­cence, every­thing was laid out for us: slo­gans and text­books — one “cor­rect truth.” But many have felt that there is some­thing more. What was your expe­ri­ence?

I began read­ing at an ear­ly age, even before start­ing school, and quick­ly real­ized that accept­ing every­thing mind­less­ly was unwise, even harm­ful. You rush to music school with your vio­lin, and every­where you go, peo­ple tell you, “Let’s ful­fil a five-year plan in three years!” Bor­ing! Espe­cial­ly when, if not a Conan Doyle book, you at least have some sci­ence fic­tion at home. On Sun­days, we chil­dren ran to the cin­e­ma for morn­ing screen­ings. We either watched an idi­ot­ic film about a con­struc­tion site or fac­to­ry, or a cheer­ful doc­u­men­tary about the har­vest or a par­ty con­gress of some kind.

Mean­while, it was the late 1960s. Stilet­tos, tape recorders, the twist, miniskirts, Vladimir Vysot­sky, Bulat Okudzha­va, the Rolling Stones, the Bea­t­les… We had no inter­est in hear­ing about five-year plans! More so about social­ist com­pe­ti­tion! No one could have inoc­u­lat­ed us, still school­child­ren, against Sovi­et ide­ol­o­gy bet­ter than the Sovi­et ide­ol­o­gists them­selves. Maybe not all of us. But, as “Dear Leonid Brezh­nev” used to say, my friends and I kept pace with the times.

Your school youth is not just about Min­sk; it’s also Klichau with all its provin­cial charm. What did you notice about that part of the world?

I vis­it­ed my grand­par­ents every sum­mer. It took almost the first quar­ter at school for my grazed elbows and knees to heal after­wards. There were so many dif­fer­ent adven­tures. One day, we came across a place in the for­est with an abun­dance of chanterelles. Sud­den­ly, some­one said, “Let’s get out of here quick­ly — this is a Jew­ish ceme­tery!” Why is every­thing over­grown with moss and shrubs? I was con­fused. At that time, nobody talked about the Holo­caust. I start­ed annoy­ing my grand­fa­ther with ques­tions. That’s how I learned that Klichau was a Jew­ish town before the war. Almost all of them were killed. The town was rebuilt and repop­u­lat­ed after the war.

A mark in mem­o­ry. Could this be how anoth­er ver­sion of Belaru­sian his­to­ry slow­ly unfold­ed?

Includ­ing through my fam­i­ly sto­ry. My grand­fa­ther was in charge of the school when he was report­ed to the NKVD. Alleged­ly, there was an icon on the wall of Darafei Soltan’s [the grand­fa­ther – trans. note] house. You can’t entrust chil­dren to a teacher like that! In fact, he was a staunch athe­ist. He once paint­ed a por­trait of my future grand­moth­er and made a beau­ti­ful frame adorned with corn­flow­ers and for­get-me-nots. That art­work came back at him. To avoid being thrown in jail, he quick­ly enlist­ed in the army. Those in the mil­i­tary were not both­ered. I thought about the infor­mant, “What a scoundrel! He stayed with us, laugh­ing, watch­ing our young fam­i­ly with two lit­tle girls, and then act­ed so cru­el­ly…”

And how did Grandpa’s mil­i­tary fate turn out?

The war start­ed soon. He had expe­ri­enced it all: his left hand’s fin­gers wouldn’t bend, and his arm was always bent at the elbow. He had orders and medals. After leav­ing the hos­pi­tal, he found work at a mil­i­tary air­craft repair plant. How­ev­er, he remained tight-lipped about the bat­tles.

My grand­moth­er will­ing­ly told me how her fam­i­ly sur­vived the occu­pa­tion in the for­est. It had noth­ing to do with what was shown in the movies. The par­ti­sans who hadn’t man­aged to fall back behind the front lines were insid­ers. Yet, peo­ple still feared sabo­teurs com­ing from the main­land. They were sta­tioned sep­a­rate­ly. Locals were main­ly attacked because of sab­o­tage. Those raids were hor­ri­ble!

By the way, not all Ger­mans were con­sid­ered inhu­man. One of them would bring food to the peas­ants when every­one got sick with typhus. He would often take my five-year-old moth­er in his arms and cry. He showed some pic­tures. He also had two daugh­ters back at home. I won­der what became of him. Here’s my next mark: Not every­one is the same.

Addi­tion­al­ly, there are sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences between city and vil­lage life. Both adults and chil­dren are always busy with phys­i­cal work.

It’s true: they kept noses to the grind­stone. At the same time, though, they sang such beau­ti­ful songs when they gath­ered at the table! I wish I had record­ed it. Those were long bal­lads. And no drink­ing.

Would you have been able to speak Belaru­sian if it weren’t for Klichau? It’s a myth that every­one in the east­ern part of the coun­try speaks exclu­sive­ly “great and mighty Russ­ian,” right?

No Russ­ian was spo­ken there at that time. If you heard a child speak Russ­ian, there was no doubt about it — a city kid came for the hol­i­days.

What else do you remem­ber?

I vivid­ly remem­ber the riv­er and the foot­bridge that led to the vil­lage of Bior­da. I would sit and admire the water lilies and watch the fish swim in the clear water.

The idyll came to an end with land recla­ma­tion. It was not an improve­ment, but rather the drainage of the earth. The for­est springs were gone — and with them, the birch bark cups once wait­ing for a wanderer’s thirst. The Susha Riv­er, on whose shore the great-grandmother’s house stood, was gone. The Olsa Riv­er began to grow over with green­ery because nitrates were scat­tered around and washed into the water. On top of that, peo­ple start­ed col­lect­ing pearl mus­sels in sacks to dec­o­rate the foun­da­tions of shops and clubs. Some fool thought it was beau­ti­ful, but they were fil­ter­ing the water. There were few­er spills each year, and the riv­er became nar­row­er, now just a trick­le. Hand­made dec­o­ra­tions com­mis­sioned by the “Wise Par­ty.” Anoth­er mark…

Liubou Lunio­va is an employ­ee of the Insti­tute of Math­e­mat­ics of the Acad­e­my of Sci­ences. Pho­to: from per­son­al archive

A normal person was framed as a criminal, while a criminal and a cynic were molded into saints

You worked at the Math­e­mat­ics Insti­tute of the Acad­e­my of Sci­ences and took an evening course in the His­to­ry Depart­ment. Two com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent fields. Why such a wide range?

The era of com­put­ing machines had just begun. They were at the fore­front of sci­en­tif­ic progress. We had a BESM‑6 com­put­er, the third one in the USSR after the machines in Novosi­birsk and the Dub­na mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem. It was just huge, occu­py­ing sev­er­al large halls! The ground floor was entire­ly ded­i­cat­ed to a com­put­ing lab­o­ra­to­ry. Every­thing worked around the clock. I worked the night shift.

Nev­er­the­less, his­to­ry, espe­cial­ly that of the ancient world, made me way too excit­ed. There was a lot of dis­cus­sion among us back then about the “new chronol­o­gy”[3] intro­duced by Fomenko and Post­nikov. By the way, my friends who were pure math­e­mati­cians sup­port­ed this the­o­ry. Good­ness, we used to argue like crazy! What did the board look like in the dif­fer­en­tial equa­tions lab­o­ra­to­ry? Graphs with straight lines, poly­lines, and for­mu­las all over. If only the Phoeni­cians had known that their his­to­ry was ver­i­fied by math­e­mat­i­cal mod­el­ing!

What was the pri­ma­ry out­come of edu­ca­tion? Was it the capac­i­ty to ques­tion, to doubt, and to chal­lenge estab­lished expla­na­tions? Have you ever felt that the pro­fes­sion itself presents a chal­lenge, that it is big­ger than just dates and sur­names?

When my mater­ni­ty leave end­ed, a lab­o­ra­to­ry assis­tant posi­tion became avail­able in the Depart­ment of South­ern and West­ern Slavs. I was going to work, pass my post-grad­u­a­tion entry exams, and begin writ­ing my dis­ser­ta­tion. I imme­di­ate­ly became friends with Yury Drahun, Valiantsin Rabt­se­vich, and Henadz Dauhial at the fac­ul­ty. They are such won­der­ful, inter­est­ing peo­ple, and I miss them so much. At that time, it was already clear that our views were diverg­ing. For some, the envi­ron­ment was more impor­tant. They hur­ried to rewrite the his­to­ry text­books as Lukashen­ka ordered. Few peo­ple paid atten­tion then. And this was not even a warn­ing sign; it was a wake-up call.

Soon­er or lat­er, every­one encoun­ters their first ban when the sys­tem orders, “This is not allowed!” What was your inner response? Did you accept or over­come it?

Isn’t par­tic­i­pat­ing in street protests a way of over­com­ing fear? When they were scar­ing peo­ple with snipers on the roofs, when you were going to a demon­stra­tion, and didn’t know how it would end. Every­thing hap­pened for the first time. Even hold­ing a Con­gress.[4] I remem­ber Yury Zakha­ran­ka per­son­al­ly mak­ing sure that there were no “sur­pris­es” in the room.

Which exam­ple of fam­i­ly his­to­ry influ­enced you more — stay­ing silent or an open and hon­est, albeit risky, posi­tion?

I remem­ber an episode, it’s worth writ­ing a whole sto­ry about it. It was 1964. My moth­er was in the mine’s plan­ning depart­ment office in Yenaki­ieve, with a por­trait of Niki­ta Khrushchev hang­ing behind her. In the next office, some­one was ham­mer­ing some­thing into the wall — and the frame fell. She picked it up by the loop, car­ried it into the cor­ri­dor, and joked: “I’ll trade Khrushchev for two sta­plers.” As bad luck would have it, the head of the Par­ty Com­mit­tee was pass­ing by. He had only four years of school­ing and there­fore hat­ed tech­ni­cal engi­neer­ing work­ers with high­er edu­ca­tion. So he took advan­tage of the moment: “On Fri­day, there will be a Par­ty meet­ing — we’ll review your per­son­al case. You can say good­bye to the Kom­so­mol for sure, and I also hope you’ll be fired with cause.”

What a dis­as­ter!

On Thurs­day, with only one day left before the rigged tri­al, the col­leagues sud­den­ly approached her: “Lora, Lora! They said on the radio that Khrushchev was removed from office!” Mom was prob­a­bly the hap­pi­est about the his­tor­i­cal retire­ment.

I remem­ber she was in her doc­tor­al course, tak­ing notes on Lenin’s works. Well, every­one had to do this, includ­ing me, but lat­er. Dad asked why she didn’t want to join the Par­ty. The reply was: “Go on, read what he’s writ­ten. Take this para­graph, for instance  — do you get it? The leader of the world pro­le­tari­at… It’s revolt­ing, pure can­ni­bal­ism!” I was dumb­found­ed. Vladimir Lenin was a saint to me. Since child­hood, I had been sur­round­ed by pam­phlets and books about the heav­en-dweller. How­ev­er, when I began my own research of his writ­ing, the sit­u­a­tion became much clear­er. That’s how it hap­pened back then: a nor­mal per­son was framed as a crim­i­nal, while a crim­i­nal and a cyn­ic were mold­ed into saints.

Liubou Lunio­va and future Nobel lau­re­ate Ales Biali­ats­ki

Our protest allowed Ukrainians to avoid the war for a few more years

Belarus in the 1990s was a con­tra­dic­to­ry era: an explo­sion of oppor­tu­ni­ties, open­ness, and free­dom on the one hand, and naivety, mis­takes, and dis­ap­point­ments on the oth­er. How does this time appear to you through the lens of a pro­fes­sion­al?

A win­dow opened in it through which we could escape Rus­sia. But you only under­stand this now, with all the events and time behind you. At the time, soci­ety was not ready. Ide­ol­o­gy-poi­soned Sovi­et minds blocked polit­i­cal will. How much did peo­ple know about the ter­ri­ble role neigh­bors played in our fate? One thing was drilled into my con­scious­ness: there is an old­er broth­er who is wis­er, more beau­ti­ful, and stronger.

One day, I observed how the pupils of Suvorov Mil­i­tary Col­lege react­ed to a film reveal­ing new truths about the Tadeusz Kosciuszko upris­ing screened at the Writer’s House. They arrived noisy but left thought­ful. Well, at least they learned some­thing. But how many peo­ple would see that tape? A cou­ple of hun­dred or a thou­sand? They didn’t show it on TV. The truth was hard to come by.

If you were to write a true his­to­ry of the last cen­tu­ry, what would the main rup­tures and frac­tures be? The most impor­tant events?

The count­down should start in 1914. We need mate­r­i­al in school and stu­dent text­books that address­es the enor­mous impact of the First World War on Belarus. In my opin­ion, the coun­try suf­fered more than any oth­er coun­try. It was unable to recov­er before the next tragedy began.

Then came the peri­od from 1945 to 1991, dur­ing which Rus­sian­iza­tion con­tin­ued and Belarus became a test­ing ground for com­mu­nism. The after­math of the Chornobyl dis­as­ter also marked this peri­od.

The third peri­od spanned from 1991 to 2020. This marked the begin­ning of sov­er­eign­ty, the col­lapse of inde­pen­dent pol­i­tics, and the estab­lish­ment of a pup­pet regime. It also led to the destruc­tion of the country’s well-devel­oped indus­try. Entire eco­nom­ic depen­den­cy on Rus­sia. The demo­li­tion of demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions, the lack of sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers, and cor­rup­tion.

The fourth peri­od begins in 2020 with the crack­down on civ­il soci­ety, repres­sion, mass emi­gra­tion, and the out­break of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Belarus becomes a land under occu­pa­tion.

Liubou Lunio­va. March 25, 2006. On Dzerzhin­sky Avenue, when the author­i­ties first used stun grenades against demon­stra­tors. Pho­to: svaboda.org

Speak­ing of the 1990s and 2020 protests: are there sim­i­lar­i­ties in the sen­ti­ments, slo­gans, and styles of sol­i­dar­i­ty exhib­it­ed dur­ing these two peri­ods? Or, con­verse­ly, do they show that the coun­try has entered a new stage?

The sit­u­a­tion has obvi­ous­ly changed, as have the peo­ple. White rib­bons were used at first, but they didn’t last very long. In an instant, nation­al flags were seen every­where. “Long live Belarus!” could be heard from every cor­ner. In 2020, peo­ple were angry because of the pan­dem­ic and because they were treat­ed like cat­tle. Not to men­tion the inter­net shut­down on elec­tion day.

They say there weren’t as many tru­ly com­mit­ted, idea-dri­ven peo­ple at the march­es as there used to be.

I dis­agree. Is a per­son who demands the right to choose instead of a piece of bread real­ly not polit­i­cal­ly con­scious? This is very much dif­fer­ent from a demon­stra­tion by work­ers protest­ing tobac­co short­ages. The peo­ple longed for free­dom and democ­ra­cy  — and in such an extra­or­di­nary way! The posters they cre­at­ed were remark­able,  and the sense of sol­i­dar­i­ty was incred­i­ble.

After those events, we were tak­en aback when Ukraini­ans asked, “What’s wrong with your pres­i­dent?” They still don’t under­stand. Thanks to our protest, they were able to live with­out war for a few more years.

Mod­ern-day repres­sion is often com­pared to Stalin’s. Is it a fair state­ment? Does this actu­al­ly pro­vide gen­uine ana­lyt­i­cal insight into the sit­u­a­tion, or is it instead a metaphor that empha­sizes the mag­ni­tude of the cru­el­ty?

The par­al­lels appear valid, as the sta­tis­tics of the vic­tims will not dif­fer sig­nif­i­cant­ly, even in per­cent­age terms. Today, there are prob­a­bly few fam­i­lies who haven’t been swept up in the crack­down. Some­one was beat­en or fired, some­one was in deten­tion, or paid a fine. Can life under con­stant sur­veil­lance be con­sid­ered nor­mal? Belarus is going through a ter­ri­ble peri­od. Even regime sup­port­ers are occa­sion­al­ly pun­ished.

It seems to be the oppo­site, though. Their day has come.

I think it real­ly hit every­one. After all, life should have been much bet­ter with­out the dras­tic change. A bunch of scoundrels is just a drop in the buck­et.

What is immune to repres­sion or pro­pa­gan­da?

The desire to be free.

Liubou Lunio­va. Pho­to: from per­son­al archive

“Ms Luniova, some Christ guy was speaking, the ministry is losing it. What nonsense did he come up with this time?”

What does it cost to be one of the lead­ing chron­i­clers of the protests? For years, you stood between the oppo­si­tion and the regime, between the dri­ve of the streets and the blows of the baton. What is it like to bear that — not as a sym­bol, but as a liv­ing per­son?

It’s inter­est­ing what you said about being a liv­ing per­son. There were moments when I gen­uine­ly just want­ed to stay alive. In 2006, on Dzerzhin­sky Avenue, they were shoot­ing stun grenades and bru­tal­ly beat­ing peo­ple. I returned to the edi­to­r­i­al office with blood on my beige suede boots. Not to men­tion 2020 — it’s hard to keep your com­po­sure when you watch peo­ple being beat­en and dragged across the asphalt by their feet. Work­ing on the radio exac­er­bates the sit­u­a­tion because you need to stay close to the epi­cen­ter of events so lis­ten­ers can feel the atmos­phere and hear the injured’s screams and the anger of the secu­ri­ty forces.

I’ve heard more than once that even the police treat­ed Lunio­va with respect. How would you explain this phe­nom­e­non? Is it the result of your pro­fes­sion­al endurance, per­son­al courage, or the abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate with secu­ri­ty forces as peo­ple and not ene­mies?

Yes, it was inter­est­ing to hear the com­ments from the seniors, majors, and colonels. Still, there was some­thing unusu­al about their atti­tude toward me. High-rank­ing com­man­ders were always present at oppo­si­tion ral­lies, where they lis­tened to speech­es. And lat­er, when there was no dis­per­sal, they could come up and ask, “Ms Lunio­va, what was that report that got every­one so worked up? That guy, what’s his name… well, some Christ guy was speak­ing, the min­istry is los­ing it. What non­sense did he come up with this time?” In a nut­shell, I would tell them what Chris­tos Pur­guridis, the PACE Com­mit­tee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, said about miss­ing peo­ple in Belarus. We were both inter­est­ed in the event because inter­na­tion­al observers had indeed put the Inte­ri­or Min­istry on its toes. I’m not sure why they spoke to me with such loy­al­ty.

We actu­al­ly lived in anoth­er coun­try until 2020.I would reach out to var­i­ous police author­i­ties for com­ments. Once, the head of the crim­i­nal police depart­ment remem­bered that he had stud­ied  spe­cial class­es at a Belaru­sian-lan­guage school and gave a com­ment “in the lan­guage” to Radio Lib­er­ty in Belaru­sian. This is unthink­able now.

What a sto­ry! Appar­ent­ly, it’s not an iso­lat­ed case.

One day, after anoth­er crack­down on the action on Kas­trych­nit­skaya Square, the com­man­der of the SWAT unit told me: “Do you have any pro­tec­tive equip­ment? You can get hit on the head.” “My weapon is a dic­ta­phone, a pen, and a note­book,” I respond­ed. The edi­to­r­i­al office pro­vid­ed us with small dic­ta­phones with large, heavy micro­phones. He picked up the device and tapped him­self on the head. “Oh well, that’s a good weapon.”

Couldn’t we con­sid­er it a beau­ti­ful metaphor to say that, at times, Luniova’s mere pres­ence was suf­fi­cient to deter the aggres­sion of the secu­ri­ty forces?

The nature of that moment is prob­lem­at­ic for many to grasp, but years ago, the secu­ri­ty forces still tried to main­tain a respectable appear­ance. “We are law enforce­ment offi­cers.” Yeah, right… But they were indeed ordered not to make bru­tal arrests in front of jour­nal­ists for a cer­tain peri­od. I real­ly noticed that. The clos­er we got, the more they con­trolled them­selves.

We, the Bel­sat jour­nal­ists, once went to a meet­ing with the company’s man­age­ment in Vil­nius. At the same time, many peo­ple went to a Siarhei Mikhalok con­cert. The bor­der cross­ing was packed with bus­es. We’re late. My col­leagues would insist, “Why don’t you go talk to them and ask them to make an excep­tion for us?” But bor­der guards aren’t police offi­cers! They wear a dif­fer­ent kind of uni­form. Still, I pulled myself togeth­er and went for it — I said, “We’re not part of the danc­ing crowd like the oth­ers; we real­ly need to hur­ry.” They looked at my jour­nal­ist ID, saw my last name, and sur­pris­ing­ly let us through.

In short, var­i­ous things have hap­pened, and I can’t quite explain why. Among oth­er things, it might have been because I was con­stant­ly report­ing on acute events that every­one found inter­est­ing.

Isn’t there a sub­tle show of respect for women in dire sit­u­a­tions, espe­cial­ly when it involves a promi­nent fig­ure?

Hah! Some­times, the sit­u­a­tions were com­plete­ly anec­do­tal. The Mask­ous­ki Dis­trict Police Depart­ment employed a spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter. He start­ed intim­i­dat­ing us in the hall­way on the way to court. He swore and behaved aggres­sive­ly. I rep­ri­mand­ed and asked him to low­er his tone. He respond­ed, “Don’t you dare to inter­fere!” “Is that how you talk to all women?” “Ms Lunio­va, you’re not a woman to me. You’re worse than Zianon Paz­ni­ak!”[5]

To him, Zianon was appar­ent­ly the epit­o­me of all the democ­rats’ worst qual­i­ties.

In this regard, I have a ques­tion: What is it like to work for many years in an envi­ron­ment dom­i­nat­ed by men, such as in sci­ence, jour­nal­ism, or human rights? Did you ever feel a dou­ble bur­den? When it comes to prov­ing one’s com­pe­tence, does a gen­der bar­ri­er make it a pro­fes­sion­al chal­lenge that requires twice the effort?

This prob­lem per­sists in cer­tain con­texts. The sit­u­a­tion is grad­u­al­ly improv­ing, though. As a rule, it was about mon­ey. The belief that men should be paid more is a banal man­i­fes­ta­tion of a patri­ar­chal soci­ety. I would also like to men­tion the women’s march­es and how the women broke through the lines of riot police. How they were beat­en and dragged into police wag­ons, and how they brave­ly endured it all. That’s what com­plete gen­der equal­i­ty looks like.

Liubou Lunio­va

It took me a long time to recover: I was defeated — but they had their lives taken away…

The feel­ing that you need to be right there, right now, next to that per­son — where does this pro­fes­sion­al instinct come from? Is it from the pro­fes­sion of a his­to­ri­an, who looks for signs in detail? Is it from the expe­ri­ence of a human rights defend­er, who always sees the per­son behind the fact? Or is it from per­son­al intu­ition?

It seems to me that, as events devel­op, some details some­times become notice­able on their own, and you just need to look close­ly at the sto­ries. Every­thing is unfold­ing at the event site. I couldn’t have just worked from the office. I always need­ed to feel, smell, taste, and hear con­ver­sa­tions, as they say. Many things are not includ­ed in the report; they remain behind the scenes. How­ev­er, they are reg­is­tered by your mem­o­ry and grad­u­al­ly form a sys­tem of obser­va­tion, sen­sa­tion, and under­stand­ing. That’s how you start to see the pat­tern.

What is the pur­pose of jour­nal­ism dur­ing protests? Is it mere­ly the detached reg­is­tra­tion of facts, or is it also an attempt to make peo­ple feel like their voice has been heard and their dig­ni­ty has been acknowl­edged?

A jour­nal­ist should remain impar­tial. And it’s tough. This is espe­cial­ly true if every­thing is devel­op­ing rapid­ly. To ensure clar­i­ty, it is essen­tial to depict every ele­ment in great detail. Dur­ing the 2020 protests, we had to con­sid­er our safe­ty, which com­pli­cat­ed mat­ters.

I am grate­ful to those who rec­og­nized and appre­ci­at­ed your work­ing con­di­tions. One day, I was stand­ing on a porch when a police offi­cer start­ed point­ing his gun at me. The feel­ing of help­less­ness pos­sessed me. Sud­den­ly, the door opened, and a man pulled me inside. Then we heard the sound of a bul­let strik­ing the door. Lat­er, I received a shell cas­ing shaped like a bomb as a sou­venir. This is the best recog­ni­tion.

Not only do you save oth­ers, but oth­ers save you as well? Can you recall moments of a pow­er­ful emo­tion­al con­nec­tion with the peo­ple you inter­viewed, whose sto­ries you explored?

I had to deal with those who were sen­tenced to death.

In what way?

Their rel­a­tives and friends brought notes from them ask­ing me to look into the case. Eight sto­ries. I would go through every agency every time. I stud­ied the case files and met with the lawyers. There were so many incon­sis­ten­cies in six of their cas­es that even I, not being a lawyer, could see that the evi­dence was far from con­clu­sive. It gave me ener­gy — the desire to look for facts and argu­ments to help save those poor souls. And it was a big blow when they were still shot. Every one of them. Almost in one day. Despite the involve­ment of var­i­ous inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, appli­ca­tions were sub­mit­ted to the Supreme Court and the Prosecutor’s Office request­ing addi­tion­al pro­ceed­ings and a stay of exe­cu­tion. But all in vain. It took me a long time to recov­er: I was defeat­ed — but they had their lives tak­en away…

You began mon­i­tor­ing law enforce­ment agen­cies dur­ing the late Sovi­et era, when the police appeared more slug­gish and timid than cru­el. Do you remem­ber when their actions tran­si­tioned from polic­ing to open vio­lence?

The bru­tal crack­down on the 1995 ral­ly fol­low­ing the ref­er­en­dum imme­di­ate­ly comes to mind. Stu­dents hung the flag of the BSSR on the toi­let at the Yan­ka Kupala The­ater. That was the begin­ning. At that moment, I was struck by how peo­ple in track­suits could treat par­tic­i­pants in a peace­ful ral­ly like that. After that episode, it fol­lowed a well-trod­den path. Deten­tions, beat­ings of detainees, insults…

You spent three decades report­ing on repres­sive mech­a­nisms. How has it evolved from the Sovi­et script to author­i­tar­i­an prac­tice?

The prac­tice of mak­ing arrests and bring­ing crim­i­nal cas­es against peo­ple protest­ing in the streets began to take shape in 1996, when the author­i­ties decid­ed to stop the protests by any means nec­es­sary. It should also be not­ed that these graf­fi­ti, pick­ets, demon­stra­tions, ral­lies, and nation­al flag hang­ings posed a threat to Russ­ian expan­sion.

One exam­ple is the Free­dom March in 1999. The gov­ern­ment of the time deemed it impres­sive, and thus some­one was to be held account­able. But that some­one had to be depict­ed as a harm­ful trou­ble­mak­er, one who mis­guid­ed the pub­lic. Then, Ali­ak­san­dr Zimous­ki[6] announced on TV that it was a “herd of scum­bags.” They also need­ed to demon­strate that the secu­ri­ty forces were the ones who “suf­fered.” Cas­es were swift­ly opened, and Valer Shchukin, along with Mikalai Statke­vich,[7] were put on tri­al.

Every­thing has changed com­plete­ly. Now, all there is is end­less repres­sion, and they don’t even try to cre­ate the appear­ance of legal­i­ty. Police bru­tal­i­ty turned into autho­rized law­less­ness.

Liubou Lunio­va

Does the Belaru­sian legal sys­tem still oper­ate under the same log­ic as before? Even if the forms have changed?

The for­mer chair­man of the court told me in the late ‘90s that he was sum­moned to the dis­trict exec­u­tive com­mit­tee and rep­ri­mand­ed for impris­on­ing a mem­ber of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty. And no one seemed to care that the offense did not allow for any alter­na­tive mea­sure. In post-Sovi­et Belarus, Sovi­etism is still very much alive because they tried so hard to force our coun­try into the stall, the USSR. The Supreme Court chair­man ordered that sen­tences under crim­i­nal arti­cles should not be over­turned. You can write as many appeals as you want, but it won’t do any good. Can­cel­la­tions are extreme­ly rare. The rule of law is in a ter­ri­ble state — and that’s why we have what we have now. The most impor­tant thing is the court’s chairman’s word and opin­ion. All admin­is­tra­tive mat­ters are decid­ed on in advance in his office. But does it real­ly mat­ter who does it and where? It would be more hon­est if they just read out the list right away and imme­di­ate­ly announced who gets how much time and under which arti­cles…

Can human rights defend­ers real­ly save evi­dence for the future in such con­di­tions? Is there any hope that the doc­u­ments gath­ered by the Vias­na Human Rights Cen­ter will one day serve as evi­dence in a future tri­al of the regime, rather than mere­ly end­ing up in the archives?

Absolute­ly. The media’s report­ing and human rights activists’ mon­i­tor­ing are evi­dence of gov­ern­ment crimes. Those respon­si­ble for gross vio­la­tions of nation­al leg­is­la­tion and inter­na­tion­al law must be tried.

Law enforcement officers are fired for being too soft, not too tough. So they break away. From the law and from the people

Over the past 30 years, numer­ous heads of law enforce­ment agen­cies in Min­sk have changed, and each has set their own tone for their units’ work. Can we say that cru­el­ty depends on per­son­al­i­ty? Or did the sys­tem grind down even those who ini­tial­ly remained “sim­ple” peo­ple, even those in uni­form with large stars?

A lot depends on the head of a par­tic­u­lar depart­ment, includ­ing dis­ci­pline, behav­ior, and treat­ment of protest par­tic­i­pants. I observed that, with each new commander’s arrival, the sit­u­a­tion with the riot police only got worse. After all, they have their own inter­nal pro­ce­dures. In our coun­try, secu­ri­ty forces are crit­i­cized for being either too lenient or not strict enough. The judge may be pun­ished for a fair ver­dict, but not the oth­er way around. So they break away. From the law, the leg­is­la­tion, and human­ism. From the peo­ple.

Were there any instances in which police offi­cers act­ed unex­pect­ed­ly humane­ly? For exam­ple, they warned pro­test­ers instead of beat­ing them, or sim­ply turned away.

After being arrest­ed and trans­ferred to a dif­fer­ent deten­tion facil­i­ty, I asked the guard to open the “feed­er” because the cell was unbear­ably stuffy. He replied, “I can also open the win­dow.” He entered the cell with a met­al bay­o­net and let in some air. This gen­er­al­ly vio­lates the instruc­tions. You can­not enter the cell, espe­cial­ly alone. We like­ly encoun­tered a young sol­dier. Since he was so polite, I asked him to get my glass­es out of my bag, which was among the con­fis­cat­ed items. I couldn’t read with­out them. He fetched me the glass­es, too. And anoth­er one, when we were tak­en out for exer­cise in the court­yard, react­ed to my words — “Ah! I need to put my hands behind my back. I just can’t get used to it…” — by say­ing, “What are you talk­ing about? No need for that…” He stood out against the back­drop of omnipresent mon­sters.

The French Rev­o­lu­tion is asso­ci­at­ed with the guil­lo­tine, the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion with blood on the streets, and the 2020 Belaru­sian Rev­o­lu­tion with tor­ture in deten­tion cen­ters. Why do these cru­el sce­nar­ios of human his­to­ry repeat them­selves dur­ing times of change? From the per­spec­tive of human nature, can we speak of a specif­i­cal­ly Belaru­sian tra­di­tion of fear and war mem­o­ry that trans­forms into polit­i­cal vio­lence?

There’s no log­i­cal sequence to this. The French Rev­o­lu­tion final­ly pro­duced pos­i­tive results: the monar­chy end­ed, the Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights was adopt­ed, and class priv­i­leges were abol­ished. It demon­strat­ed a new way of life to oth­er coun­tries.

So, did the 1905 bour­geois rev­o­lu­tion in Rus­sia have pos­i­tive results?

Yes, the State Duma was estab­lished, polit­i­cal par­ties were legal­ized, and the people’s sit­u­a­tion improved. We can even speak of the pre­con­di­tions for the emer­gence of civ­il soci­ety.

For that mat­ter, the 1917 Rev­o­lu­tion end­ed the era of autoc­ra­cy. Polit­i­cal pris­on­ers were grant­ed amnesty, the death penal­ty was abol­ished, and free­dom of speech and assem­bly was declared. Sol­id advan­tages, right?

No, of course, the results were dis­as­trous, but you must agree that there was an oppor­tu­ni­ty for this coun­try to become humane final­ly. Then a gang of Bol­she­viks seized pow­er — almost with­out blood­shed by the way — and climbed to the top, drown­ing all the new­ly formed republics in tears. The exact num­ber of peo­ple who were killed in labor camps and pris­ons is still unknown.

Liubou Lunio­va

What lessons can be drawn from 2020?

Even though it wasn’t a rev­o­lu­tion, Belaru­sians felt them­selves to be a nation — a force. They dis­cov­ered their nation­al dig­ni­ty. We didn’t take to the streets to demand bread or land, but for free­dom. And we want­ed it so pro­found­ly that no cru­el­ty can crush that desire. It will come. Inevitably.

Accord­ing to psy­chol­o­gists, every per­son has an aggres­sor and a defend­er inside them. What do you think pre­vails among Belaru­sian secu­ri­ty offi­cers, based on what you wit­nessed?

At the moment, secu­ri­ty forces are recruit­ing the wrong peo­ple to serve in that capac­i­ty. They enlist to receive free apart­ments, high­er salaries, and priv­i­leges. Who would want to serve in a hell like this if they grew up in a nor­mal fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­cat­ed with nor­mal peo­ple, and saw what was hap­pen­ing?

When change comes, the state — and all of us — will face a sig­nif­i­cant prob­lem: what to do with them? This job results in a men­tal dis­or­der. Many of these young “baton car­ri­ers” will even­tu­al­ly get mar­ried and have chil­dren. I am con­fi­dent that we will fig­ure out the econ­o­my issued faster than such mat­ters. There are thou­sands of them…

Com­pil­ing all of your reports into one vol­ume would cre­ate a his­to­ry book doc­u­ment­ing state vio­lence in Belarus. What should it be for future gen­er­a­tions: a warn­ing, a ver­dict, or a con­fes­sion of that era?

I think there will be sev­er­al sub­stan­tial vol­umes. All of them illus­trate what hap­pens to a coun­try when out­siders estab­lish a dic­ta­tor­ship based on pow­er and batons.

The project “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” is co-financed by the Pol­ish Coop­er­a­tion for Devel­op­ment Pro­gram of the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of the Repub­lic of Poland. The pub­li­ca­tion reflects exclu­sive­ly the author’s views and can­not be equat­ed with the offi­cial posi­tion of the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of the Repub­lic of Poland.

[1] Vladimir Vysot­sky was a Sovi­et singer-song­writer, poet, and actor who had an immense and endur­ing effect on Sovi­et cul­ture. He became wide­ly known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which fea­tured social and polit­i­cal com­men­tary in often-humor­ous street jar­gon.

[2]  Bulat Okudzha­va was a Sovi­et and Russ­ian poet, writer, musi­cian, nov­el­ist, and singer-song­writer of Geor­gian-Armen­ian ances­try. He was one of the founders of the Sovi­et genre called “author song”, or “gui­tar song”, and the author of about 200 songs, set to his own poet­ry.

[3] A pseudo­his­tor­i­cal the­o­ry pro­posed by math­e­mati­cian Ana­toly Fomenko who argues that events of antiq­ui­ty gen­er­al­ly attrib­uted to the ancient civ­i­liza­tions of Rome, Greece and Egypt, among oth­ers, actu­al­ly occurred dur­ing the Mid­dle Ages, more than a thou­sand years lat­er.

[4] Nation­al Con­gress in Defense of the Con­sti­tu­tion in 1996 (attend­ed by 1,500 par­tic­i­pants and 130 jour­nal­ists from Belarus and abroad) adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for Lukashenka’s removal from pow­er.

[5] A Belaru­sian nation­al­ist politi­cian, archae­ol­o­gist, and pro-democ­ra­cy activist. He was a found­ing fig­ure of the Belaru­sian Pop­u­lar Front and served as the chair­man of its par­lia­men­tary frac­tion in the Supreme Sovi­et of Belarus from 1990 to 1995.

[6] A Belaru­sian politi­cian and for­mer media exec­u­tive and TV host, accused of being one of the key pro­pa­gan­dists of the author­i­tar­i­an regime of Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashen­ka.

[7] Two life­long oppo­si­tion mem­bers who start­ed their polit­i­cal career in the ear­ly ‘90s.