Long considered one of Europe’s most repressive states, conditions in Belarus have become even harsher since a brutal security crackdown that followed a disputed presidential election in 2020.
At least 1,100 people are still behind bars in the country on politically motivated charges, according to rights groups, including over 150 women.
Many of these female prisoners have been incarcerated at a notorious penal colony in the southeastern city of Homel.
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, former inmates described the harsh conditions they had to endure in this detention facility.
Now free and living in exile, they shared stories of freezing cells, rotten food, “slave labor” sewing uniforms, and a ban on even the smallest acts of solidarity.
“It’s like a nightmare,” says Halina Dzerbysh of the prison where she was sent after falling foul of strongman Aleksandr Lukashenko’s authoritarian regime and being sentenced to 20 years on widely criticized “terrorism” charges.
“I was hungry all the time there,” adds the 64-year-old retired accountant and independent election observer who was freed in a US-brokered deal that secured the release of dozens of political prisoners in September.
“In the morning, we had porridge and white bread with tea. Then everything depended on your luck. You might get potato stew, which you could only eat if you didn’t look at it. There were worms instead of meat.”
Palina Sharenda-Panasyuk, a 50-year-old civic activist and member of the European Belarus movement who spent more than five years in detention, likened the Homel facility to “the gulag,” saying extreme cold was a major issue.
Prisoners would “wrap their heads with a tiny hand towel just to warm themselves with their own breath. It was a classic trick,” she says.
“The guards would bang on the door day and night with batons, yelling: ‘Take off the towel!’ If you wrapped yourself in toilet paper, it wasn’t as noticeable. That was how we kept warm.”
Natallya Dulina, a 60-year-old former associate professor at the Minsk State Linguistic University who was imprisoned on “extremism” charges after taking part in anti-government protests, says the psychological strain was overwhelming.
“Sometimes it felt like a madhouse, a psychiatric ward,” she recalls.
That mental pressure was intentional, according to 30-year-old blogger and feminist activist Darya Afanasyeva, who spent more than two years in custody after being arrested in connection with the 2020 protests.
“Human feelings like care, support, and friendship are banned” at the prison, she says. “So are sisterhood, happiness, and love.”
According to Afanasyeva, even the smallest act of solidarity — like boiling water together — could result in punishment.
“From early in the morning, you don’t know how to cope with your despair,” she says.
Prison work was also another tool of control, according to Volha Takarchuk, a 40-year-old blogger sentenced in 2021 to 18 months in prison for online posts deemed insulting to officials.
“It’s unpaid slave labor. You work for the government,” she says.
Describing the policy as “a smart move by Lukashenko,” Takarchuk said inmates ended up producing uniforms for the very security forces who helped imprison them.
Nonetheless, she says the harsh regime did little to dampen defiance among inmates of the prison in Homel.
“You could feel the disgust and hatred that the uniforms were made with. Prisoners would spit on them and trample them,” she says.
“I would go to the toilet, where there are pools of urine on the floor, and then I’d step on a uniform and think: ‘That’s the uniform you deserve.’”
