«The torture is ongoing.» Journalist Katsiaryna Karpitskaya speaks about arrest conditions

Here is what she writes:

«How I got to the deten­tion cen­ter is a sep­a­rate sto­ry. Here I just want to remind you that both polit­i­cal pris­on­ers and detainees under­go tor­ture. 30 days there in cur­rent con­di­tions was enough for me to catch a bunch of new dis­eases upon release — from pharyn­go­tra­cheitis to cys­ti­tis and COVID-19 (by the way, it was the vac­ci­na­tion that helped to recov­er from the lat­ter faster com­pared to my cell­mates). Peo­ple stay there for 60 days or more, depend­ing on how many reports are drawn up against them.

They are kept in unsan­i­tary con­di­tions — the guards nev­er take peo­ple to a show­er or give them tooth­brush­es from per­son­al things. Some­times we had to beg for each cen­time­ter of toi­let paper.

They sit for months with­out exer­cise time (the air in cell 15 could only enter from the hall through the «feed­er,» but it was closed on pur­pose all the time).

We did­n’t receive any mat­tress­es. A loaf of old bread served as a pil­low, and we could still sleep on the bare floor or a bunk, but the nights were wild­ly cold — even hug­ging each oth­er and hold­ing a bot­tle of hot water between our legs could not soothe the chills. Exer­cis­es — squats, push-ups, stand­ing in a plank — some­how we warmed up our bod­ies and fell asleep.

We could­n’t sleep prop­er­ly any­way (at 2 and 4 am we were wok­en up for a roll call; I don’t need to men­tion that day and night bright arti­fi­cial light is on in the cell).

Care pack­ages are not allowed (many women were picked up from work or coun­try hous­es wear­ing skirts, dress­es, and they lay on the cold floor at night, until some­one who was going to be released shared her sweater or under­wear. The tooth­brush I inher­it­ed was used by like five oth­er peo­ple before that. The T‑shirt I got was worn by the moth­er of a famous pris­on­er).

Peo­ple are starv­ing. For a month of deten­tion, I had to pay more than 400 rubles (about 150 euros), and for this mon­ey, I got emp­ty soup — a liq­uid with a few pieces of pota­toes and the skin from it, moldy bread and two half-filled cups of tea or starch drink. How that could be enough for male detainees, I can’t imag­ine.

Women stay there with­out prop­er med­ical care (at the peak, there were 20 women in a dou­ble cell, all quick­ly fall­en ill in the cold and the heat. All caught coro­n­avirus, which, like oth­er ill­ness­es, was treat­ed there with parac­eta­mol. With­out the abil­i­ty to move around the house 3 by 4 meters, with poor nutri­tion all abrupt­ly stopped going to the bath­room. Sor­ry for the details, but I could only do it three times in 30 days).

The detainees are treat­ed as crim­i­nals. I’m shocked at how excit­ed the guards in the deten­tion cen­ter are, watch­ing through the peep­hole or video cam­era as we strug­gle with the new­ly invent­ed chal­lenge. First, they brought two women who had lice, expect­ing us to go hys­ter­i­cal. But we found com­mon ground with them, and after a few days it’s the guards who were «hys­ter­i­cal» and they took the so-called mar­gin­al­ized peo­ple out of our cells to «san­i­ti­za­tion», because the sit­u­a­tion was close to an epi­dem­ic of pedicu­lo­sis. The staff is very wor­ried about the con­di­tion of their uni­forms — two times a day they search our cells and con­duct per­son­al search­es, and it’s so easy to catch at least a few insects.

Then anoth­er woman set­tled in — she had intesti­nal dis­or­ders, she’s cov­ered in shit and sores that bleed, she had nail fun­gus. And a severe with­draw­al syn­drome. The guards were watch­ing and expect­ing us to go mad. And we just start­ed wash­ing her over a hole in the floor and asked the nurse to bring some­thing to treat her wounds. We were for­bid­den to sit and sleep dur­ing the day, we were insult­ed, but we kept jok­ing, and laugh­ter was heard from oth­er cells — this all was very annoy­ing to the guards.

I have some­thing else to men­tion, but I will describe all the tor­tures and crimes against the Belaru­sians in more detail in my com­plaints to the state author­i­ties (although they will say lat­er that these facts were not con­firmed). In the mean­time, let me briefly remind you why the admin­is­tra­tive­ly arrest­ed are mocked so much in Belarus:

• She wore a red dress and a white wrap­per.

• She came to sup­port Maryia Kalesnikava’s father in court (the report said that «she want­ed to release Maryia Kalesnika­va»).

• She brought a flower to the scene where one of the pro­test­ers was mur­dered.

• She for­ward­ed a mes­sage from «extrem­ist» Telegram chan­nels to her hus­band.

• She filmed a neigh­bor­hood march.

• She said to the mil­i­tary, «We are going to win.»

• She read books by Belaru­sian writ­ers on a train.

• The new man­age­ment of the Acad­e­my of Admin­is­tra­tion did­n’t like her.

• She com­mu­ni­cat­ed with neigh­bors in a chat room.

• She returned from France, where she mar­ried a French­man.

• She worked at a cul­tur­al cen­ter Kor­pus and «dis­obeyed» the police dur­ing the search (in fact, she did­n’t).

• She is an IT spe­cial­ist who might be con­nect­ed to hack­ers…»