Natallia Hersche was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for participating in a political protest. She speaks to Euronews about conditions and her release.
ADVERTISEMENTAfter pulling a balaclava off a police officer, Belarusian opposition activist Natallia Hersche was sentenced to two and half years in prison in September 2020, serving a portion of her sentence in a men’s facility.
Now that she is free again, she is fighting to ensure that the 1,300 people who are behind bars in Belarus because of their ideas are not forgotten.
Euronews met with Natallia at the Hohenschönhausen Memorial in Berlin, a former Stasi prison which is now a site dedicated to remembering the thousands who were victims of political prosecution in former East Germany.
“The buildings scream of suffering,” remarks Natallia, comparing the memorial to her prison in Belarus. The barren concrete walls of the memorial echo the many prisoners who were once imprisoned behind them. Thousands face the same fate in Belarus today, she points out.
“How can you do this to people in the 21st century?” Natallia said as she began to recount her experience behind bars.
A petite woman with shoulder-length blonde hair, it is hard to believe that she has endured one and a half years in Belarusian prison under the harshest conditions.
On 19 September 2020, she took part in a peaceful protest in Belarus that changed her life forever. Together with dozens of other women she demonstrated against the election of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who sought his then sixth term in office.
Natallia was taken by police officers to prison from the streets of Belarus after attempting to pull a balaclava off the face of one of the officers present. Initially taken into custody, she was moved into a penal colony in Homel and later to Mogilev.
Prison conditions in Belarusian prisons are harsh, with Natallia held with 120 other women sharing only six toilets.
“Everything was done so that you get up with stress and go to bed with stress,” says Natallia. Women are not allowed to get up without being asked and otherwise face punishment.
‘There were few reasons to laugh’
Natallia recounts an experience where she was placed in a one and a half metre-wide cell for 46 days after refusing to sew uniforms for the Belarusian regime.
“That was torture,” Natallia says, her hands crossed limply in her lap. “The temperature in the cell was so low, you couldn’t sleep at night. And there was no bedding at night.”
The punishment cell, also known as « SHIZO » in Belarus, is “a prison within a prison” explains Natallia. The conditions are much harsher than in solitary confinement. There are two stools in the middle of the cell. A wooden folding board is attached to the side to serve as a bed however there are no mattresses or bed linin.
“It was cold. You could only close your eyes for maybe ten minutes and then you had to get up again to keep warm.”
During this time, she also injured her foot, which she realised after getting out of prison. Despite complaining to the medical department several times, she received no help.
ADVERTISEMENTIt was then that she learned how strong she really is. “I was in fight mode,” says Natallia.
Prisoners are largely isolated from the outside world. Letters Natallia wrote to her friends and family are thrown away, with the aim of making prisoners feel increasingly isolated.
Natallia said that singing helped her survive her sentence. “In the detention cell, there was another political prisoner in the same building and we exchanged our emotions by singing,” Natallia explained.
“When she sang, I cried. When I sang, she felt sad emotions.”
ADVERTISEMENTFollowing the detention centre, she spent ten months in solitary confinement. Not as brutal as in the detention centre, she remembers. At least she could order books there. “Without books, it would have been like being in a madhouse,” Natallia said.
“There were few reasons to laugh,” she remembers. She used her imagination to help her get through the hard times. “I stood next to the window. It was summer. And I imagined a rescue helicopter. It was so childish. I imagined it would come and throw a rope down for me, and I’d hang on to it and it would fly me away.”
Looking back to the past
“I closed my eyes and I was there. I was a little child, five years old. I felt how soft the grass was. That gave me so much strength.”
While she still hoped for early release at the beginning of her sentence, Natallia gradually learned to come to terms with her two-and-a-half-year prison sentence and adamantly opposed asking Lukashenko for a pardon. “I didn’t want to sell my values,” she said.
ADVERTISEMENT“It was better for me to serve two years and then continue to feel good about my peaceful life instead of lying to myself,” explains Natallia.
However, Natallia did not have to wait until the end of her prison sentence. She was suddenly released ahead of schedule in February 2022. A Belarusian and Swiss citizen, she associates her release with the arrival of the Swiss ambassador to Minsk.
In her prison uniform, which consists of a cotton jacket and a khaki skirt, Natallia was taken to the airport in Minsk and taken straight to the VIP section.
Arriving back in the real world, it took her a year to recover with therapy, and her reintegration process took another.
ADVERTISEMENTDuring this time, Natallia is intensively involved in art. She draws — preferably human faces and what you can read from them. “When I draw people, and then I see people’s reactions … That gives me pleasure.”
No Belarusian political prisoners were released in the most recent prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries.
“If no one is on the outside, making these cases public in a democratic way, and no one is putting pressure on dictators, then nothing will happen. People are dying there,” she remarks, comparing it to her situation and the help she believes she received from Switzerland.
Natallia sees a strong need for action. “I believe that the democratic world really needs to make an effort to get all political prisoners out,” she said.
ADVERTISEMENTPolitical prisoners in Belarus will not be released without outside intervention. “Political prisoners are the worst people for a dictatorship. Why should they be let out? They will probably become active when they leave the country. So it’s a very big danger for a dictatorship.”
Releasing all political prisoners in Belarus is the premise for Natallia’s activism. “I believe this can only be achieved through sanctions,” she emphasized emphatically, adding that sanctions should be clearly linked to the repression of political prisoners in Belarus.
As she comes to the end of her story, her face, formerly filled with pain, brightens. It becomes clear that despite isolation and torture, she has returned to normal life.
“I never had prison dreams,” she said, ”but about six months after I was released, I dreamed about it.”
ADVERTISEMENT“It was a peaceful dream. I’m in a prison in Belarus. I don’t understand why. The prison is very different. It’s friendly. The sun is shining, green grass is growing everywhere. I look at the fence and it’s not that big. »
« A delegation approaches me from the other side and Lukashenko is there. I talked to him, and he kept his eyes on the ground and just listened to me. I told him all my complaints. The delegation leaves in silence. I look out from a corner, and I see him standing and crying. Lukashenko.”
