In 2006, I was distributing leaflets and stickers.
I was 12 then
so my whole life, I lived with Lukashenko as the president of Belarus.
This is a story of Piotr's fight for his rights.
Piotr has been a volunteer of Students for Liberty for many years.
He has been protesting against the Lukashenko government
long before Belarus protest appeared in the mainstream media
in the summer of 2020.
He was born in Belarus and wants to live in Belarus
as a free individual.
Unfortunately, the regime is not making it very easy - or even possible for him.
During World War II, it was the most destroyed country of the Soviet Union.
And the public opinion or the civic society or whatever
was very quiet. Because they did not have a diaspora...
They did not have dissidents from the communist regime so...
because he was basically not known.
Lukashenko was considered to be the savior of Belarus
when he came to power in 1994.
The country was given its independence with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Its economy was crippling under the open market economy.
They were thrown into the unknown.
The country was convinced that they needed a strong leader.
Lukashenko was a former chairman or president, whatever
of a collective farm in Belarus. In '94,
he was campaigning for president coming from nowhere.
Nobody basically had any idea how the guy managed to get some public attention.
I believe he was supported by Kremlin
and his competitors were former Communist Party heads of
the autonomous republic of the Soviet Union called Belarus
Besides the anti-corruption, he had another agenda.
And if I can formulate what he basically told the public,
he basically said, "We will continue our own way.
We will not change the system." We will have central planning
and nobody will get poor like the Polish folks, you know,
they're just behind the border and all of them were poor.
So we will continue this central planning way.
In '96, Lukashenko launched a referendum on a constitutional change,
which basically gave him the power or the right
to become a president not for life
but more times than it used to be accepted by the previous constitution.
You can imagine how it could affect different aspects of people's lives
and some econonomic groups going to some basic rights,
like freedom of expression or freedom of speech.
Lukashenko's rule is not only suppressing different voices,
it also eliminates them.
Maybe you go out to buy some bread for you and your family and you come back
15 days later.
Maybe you are in exile waiting for your assassination by the government.
But most importantly, he's also eliminating the protestors.
Every Saturday there is an attempt to organize a women's march.
So I was charged of taking part in an unauthorized protest
which is very popular now. I was charged of deforming the conduct
and also ofů failing to follow lawful order of a policeman.
And I spent 10 days in prison. Before, I spent like 14 and 12ů
Laying on a bed or laying on the floor
without a blanketů not funny. There were no books, not anything to do.
For the time being, they had detained about 30,000 young individuals and women.
And only 1,000 of them were convicted of something,
like protesting un-allowed or not permitted street rally.
They had been beaten here on the street.
Two individuals died, two young boys. One 13, the other one 28.
They died this way.
So you have Lukashenko staying in charge of the country
backed by the Russians.
And what he is doing then, is actually staging a civil war
war with the difference that it is him who has the
So the opposition or those who disagree with Lukashenko
they have the moral backing of their leaders who fled Poland and neighboring Baltic countries.
But they don't seem to have backing from any country or any institution or any union
from around the world.
What happened in Belarus is that we didn't have any privatization.
There was an effort to maintain everything as a government structure,
which basically means 95.5% in the beginning of the nineties,
of the enterprises were government-owned.
The public interest is represented by Lukashenko's friends,
which explains first, his power and second, his success.
Now it's very difficult to replace him.
The rest of the 100% are, most of them either friends of Lukashenko or friends of Putin, of Russia.
But there was a tipping point for them and for him.
A particular way of the violence that the government used
after the election, like during the first nights after the election,
when they were torturing people, beating them to death.
Some people are still missing and around 8 confirmed deaths.
Soů it was better than for those who suffered on the night of the 10th, 11th of August.
People who were just raped with batons
and kept in a room 5 SQM without water for days, without a place to even sit.
So mostly, people had to sleep in shifts. No food,
almost no water. People just passing out there without air to breathe,
without any information from outside,
and being sometimes brought out from the cells to the corridors, to the halls
being stripped naked and beaten by the prison guards
for a few days, a few nights in a row.
They'd go to hospital with serious stuff, some brain injuriesů
Yeah, I was put in solitary confinement in my last arrest.
I was eaten by lice in the last three arrests.
You get deprived us of sleep so they'd keep the lights on for the whole night.
They don't give you mattresses or blankets.
Sometimes, I had to sleep on the table or on a bench.
No books. You know, this is not a very western-style prison
so something that a person can imagine in their head.
And he does not feel safe still.
Do you feel safe where you are right now?
Not really, actuallyů. Not really.
After several days, he was released from prison.
When we interviewed him, he was hiding.
Since then, the police have found him and arrested him again.
He's not a dreamer. Not anymore, at least.
He wants to see change in his country.
All of those protests, arrests and the torture,
it is only understandable that he needs that change.
For me it's obvious that all totalitarianism is evil
and the state is evil.
It's not the only problem of Belarus.
I mean that we still have a very strong influence of another authoritarian country,
which has more resources, a lot of resources of territory.
I was born in Minsk and lived most of my life in the country.
I have also friends here. I want good things for myself,
I want to live freely in Belarus.
And also I want to have my friends living freely.
Yeah, I just enjoy seeing so many people get involved in politics
and opening their eyes on the truth.
I just enjoy seeing this and also supporting this in the way I can.
The mainstream media lost their interest in Belarus.
But there are still protests happening every Sunday.
People still have hope to change the dictator;
to have their well-earned freedom.
Students for Liberty has been supporting Piotr and his friends' fight for freedom for years.
To support them, you can call your country's embassies to Belarus
and demand freedom of speech for Belarusians.
Join us. Be part of this international team of freedom-fighters.
#FreeBelarus Until then, Sincerely, with Liberty.