Starting a new life after political imprisonment in Belarus

"Of course, my husband and I spent the first day of our reunion with our family, but we also went for walks around the city so we would have a chance to talk, just the two of us. We wrote to each other regularly, three times a week, but there's a lot that happens in prison that the censor doesn't let through."

Former political prisoner Polina Polovinko and her husband, Dmitry Luksha, were both pardoned by Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko on July 3, and were released later that same day. Polovinko had only a few more weeks left of her prison sentence; her husband wasn't due to be released for another year. The couple left Belarus shortly after their release.

In an interview with DW, Polovinko spoke about what she found hardest during her time in prison, and how their release came about.

What were the couple accused of?

"It's obvious to me that this regime will stop at nothing, and that it's dangerous to remain in the country," said Polovinko. She and her husband, a journalist, had taken part in the protests against the disputed 2020 presidential election, which gave Lukashenko a sixth term in office. Luksha worked for the Belarus state broadcaster until 2016, then became a freelance correspondent for the Kazakh television channel Khabar 24.

Polovinko said she and her husband had often talked about leaving Belarus, and that she had finally convinced him to do so in 2022. At the time, she was working for an IT company, which was prepared to help them move abroad.

But on March 11, 2022, her husband was arrested on charges of "discrediting Belarus." Investigators claimed Luksha had "filmed a series of videos containing false information about Belarus." Polovinko was initially called as a witness in the case, but when she refused to testify against her husband she was declared a suspect, and accused of being his accomplice.

Polovinko stressed that the authorities had no evidence against her. She had not worked as a journalist, nor had she received any money for her husband's videos. When she was arrested on June 2, 2022, the official reason was that it was in relation to photos of the 2020 protest marches that had been seized at the couple's home. Polovinko was charged with "gross violation of public order."

Secret letters in prison

In custody before the trial, the couple were both held in the same detention center in Minsk, but were banned from communicating with each other in any way. They were only allowed to exchange messages through a lawyer, or their parents.

"Dmitry tried to arrange for us to exchange letters in prison, secretly passing notes to me via other people," said Polovinko. "I received the first such letter from him only after four months in detention."

Polovinko and Luksha were sentenced on December 2, 2022 to 2 1/2 and four years imprisonment respectively, and were also fined the equivalent of €5,300 (roughly $5,900). They served their sentences in different cities. "I couldn't exchange letters with my husband for the first five months, even though I was legally entitled to do so," said Polovinko. "I had to fight for this for a long time." At the time, she said, she was in a very poor psychological state.

Polovinko said political prisoners in Belarus are immediately subjected to "special" treatment by the regime. "From the very first day in prison, you're marginalized," she said. There were many ways this special treatment was made apparent, she added, starting with the fact that they were banned from attending any entertainment planned for the prisoners.

Polovinko was reluctant to talk about what happens to political prisoners during their time in jail because, she said, public criticism of the prison authorities always results in harsher conditions and punishments for those serving "political" sentences, including bans on receiving visitors or packages.

What was the price of freedom?

Polovinko remembered that, on arrival at the prison, she was asked whether she would be prepared to write and request a pardon. A refusal to do so, she said, would have had a negative impact on the guards' attitude toward her.

"So I told them I was prepared to do so, but I didn't actually do it, because I knew this wouldn't work," she said. She explained that many political prisoners had submitted requests for pardons that were rejected for all sorts of formal reasons.

"The decision to release me early was not the result of any effort on my part," she emphasized. One day, she was summoned to the prison authorities, where a representative of the public prosecutor's office told her that if she wanted to be released, she had only to sign a pardon request that had already been prepared and put in front of her.

"The first thing you ask yourself is what the price for this is. You worry that something will be demanded of you in return — to testify against someone, give an interview, or something else," said Polovinko. But the public prosecutor's representative told her she was not required to do anything in return.

When she asked why she, of all people, was being offered these conditions, he replied that it was because of "good behavior." He didn't divulge anything else.

'I thought only I was being released'

Meanwhile, her husband was experiencing the same thing. "He had not prepared any papers in advance. They came to him and offered him a prepared text to sign," said Polovinko.

After they signed the papers it took about two weeks before they were released, during which time no one was allowed to know what was about to happen. Polovinko assumed the authorities were worried the press or activists might get hold of the information. "I couldn't even tell my parents or Dmitry," she said.

She didn't know that her husband had also signed a prepared request for pardon. "I thought only I was being released, because my husband was serving an even longer sentence. It was only when I saw my mother in Minsk that I found out Dmitry had been released as well," she said.

The couple have now started a new life in Poland. "I'm not saying we need to get used to each other again," said Polovinko. "But, of course, you do develop some rough edges when you're somewhere as terrible as prison. We're making an effort to talk about everything."

This article was originally written in Russian.