Unique among the panoply of groups aiding victims of the Belarusian regime, Volnya helps freed political prisoners rebuild shattered lives.
In the past four years of relentless pressure on opponents of the Belarusian regime, at least 5,000 people have been convicted in politically motivated trials. According to data compiled by the human rights group Viasna, 1,388 people were in prison on trumped-up charges as of 17 July. This means that several thousand people have been released from Belarus’s notorious prison system since mass anti-government protests erupted in August 2020.
For many, the return to the world beyond prison walls brings new troubles. They face a hard choice: to stay in Belarus, most likely jobless and subject to frequent police searches, or to join the many thousands of Belarusians who have left the country to avoid persecution.
Starting in the summer of 2023, a project run by foreign-based activists has been helping former prisoners restart their lives through a mentorship program. Called Volnya (Free), the project has so far provided support to 69 people with the assistance of around 50 volunteer mentors.
See also: Remembering Belarusian Political Prisoners – Even If They Can’t Hear Us “A political prisoner’s worst fear is to be forgotten.”
Getting Started
Volnya arose out of the ever-growing network of volunteer groups that provide social services, cultural activities, and a raft of other programs to Belarusian exiles. The biggest diaspora communities are in Poland and Lithuania, and that is where most political prisoners come after release, unless they are prevented from leaving Belarus.
The educational program of the Belarusian Human Rights School first started exploring the idea for such a project, says Volnya’s manager, Veronika Stankevich, when its staff saw the urgency for a structured reintegration process for recently released political prisoners.
“We started by conducting research to understand the needs of these people and held meetings with various Belarusian initiatives to avoid duplication of efforts,” she says.
Volunteer Ekaterina got involved when she saw one of Volnya’s announcements on Instagram.
The training program for Volnya’s mentors includes guidance on recognizing a client’s real needs and how best to help them reach their goals. Illustration from the Volnya website.”The ideas resonated with me very much. I sent an application, went through training, took a test, and had an interview with a psychologist. And some time later I met my first mentee,” she says of her introduction to Volnya.
needs and how best to help them reach their goals. Illustration from the Volnya website.
During their training, mentors work with psychologists on the basic techniques of communicating with ex-prisoners.
The first step, as one mentor wrote on Volnya’s website, is to assess the client’s physical and psychological health, and their financial resources. “It is important for some to tell their personal story, how they ended up in correctional institutions, and how they got out. Others may talk about their move [abroad] or their children’s situation. It is not my job to advise or suggest something – people in difficult life circumstances need to be listened to.”
Mentors work with only one mentee at a time, often helping arrange for financial or other kinds of material aid, and helping them find a job or legalize their stay in a foreign country. The mentoring typically lasts for three to six months, starting with a phone call or email once or twice a week, then less often as the client grows more comfortable with their new living conditions.
Friends Helping Friends in Need
Volnya provides a service that other Belarusian organizations, overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of emigres, had been unable to handle. As Stankevich explains, Volnya works closely with organizations that provide a wide range of assistance to Belarusians both within the country and abroad, including help for relatives of political prisoners and prisoners themselves. The Viasna human rights center (where Stankevich assists with research on Belarusian prisoners sentenced to death), Dissidentby, and BY_help are among the best-known.
These groups typically reach out to newly released political prisoners, often recommending them to get in touch with Volnya.
Some organizations with larger staffs and connections to international donors also help Volnya fund its operations. Additional money is raised through Patreon, allowing for occasional, small financial rewards for volunteers.
The scale of Volnya’s work is likely to grow as greater numbers of released prisoners seek to leave Belarus. Those people whom Viasna and other human rights watchdogs consider to be political prisoners were commonly convicted of crimes ranging from hooliganism and slandering the president to more serious charges such as extremism and subversion.
Even prisoners who have served their full sentence know they can be arrested again on a spurious charge. A relatively new way of intimidating those who leave the country and continue to advocate for human rights in Belarus, and their families, is to seize their remaining property. In May, on the International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners,
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the regime is increasingly targeting those who have fled the country. He noted that the authorities had added 104 individuals to a list of Belarusians abroad suspected of criminal activity.
While Volnya most often works with people who have emigrated, it and other civil society organizations do what they can for former prisoners and others at risk of persecution back in Belarus, often through dedicated volunteers who risk jail themselves to aid others.
Ex-prisoners who remain in Belarus face discrimination from employers and regular police house searches. Prisoners nearing release are now sometimes forced to write public statements repenting for their crimes, activists allege.
A Friendly Face Amid the Bureaucracy
“I consider it my civic duty to take part in initiatives that try to get people released from prison and help the released political prisoners adapt,” says Ekaterina, herself an emigre in Poland.
Her Volnya client served two years in prison. He then crossed the border into Poland and applied for refugee status.
“My mentee is now awaiting a decision on refugee status, and I help him deal with some issues in the paperwork. I also provide support in general aspects of life in Poland: where to get a doctor’s appointment, where to find an apartment, how to open a bank account – and just to support him in his new life, to listen to him when he feels bad,” Ekaterina says.
Volnya also tries to aid the families of political prisoners, working through a volunteer who lives in Belarus and meets with families, helps them find psychological support when needed, and assists the less-able family members visit the doctor or a store, sort out bank accounts, and carry out other daily needs.
Mia Mitkevich, a professional choreographer, served three years in a women’s penal colony, where she says prison staff subjected her to constant psychological and physical pressure. She left for Poland two months after her release. In Warsaw, Mia made the choice to revive the business she once had in Belarus.
“I had my own dance studio for adults in Belarus before prison. When I decided to restart my business, I needed help in drawing up a business plan and doing PR on social media. I contacted the Volnya project, explained my needs, and was matched with a mentor,” she says.
“She told me how to promote my dance studio on social networks, what posts to write. During my incarceration, I lost three years and entered an entirely new world. I literally had to learn how to use a smartphone all over again.”
“Prison amnesia” – losing touch with the reality beyond prison walls – can affect anyone in jail, says Hanna Baran, a lawyer whose participation in a “round dance protest,” held in the city of Brest in 2020, led to 18 months in prison.
“In prison, everything is scheduled by the hour, and you always walk in formation. Your life does not belong to you there. And during imprisonment you forget even what it’s like to go to the store and buy groceries,” says Baran, who now works on behalf of other regime opponents persecuted by the authorities.
“When you get out, you enter a new world where you have to learn everything from scratch. And it is very important to have a person who will literally lead you by the hand and help you learn to live in a new way.”
Such aid is especially critical for those whose families were unable to support them while in prison, whether with deliveries of food or medicine, or financially, to cover the mandatory costs imposed on prisoners in Belarus. As with other inmates, the families of those jailed for political offenses may be unable to help them reintegrate into society after release.
The Hard Part Is Just Beginning
Volnya expects its workload to grow this year, as about 700 political prisoners are set to be released by December. Stankevich, Volnya’s manager, admits that this will put additional burdens on the already understaffed project.
Alana Gebremariam, the manager of Politzek.me, an assistance program for political prisoners and their families, acknowledges that Volnya faces an uphill struggle.
“Resocialization is very important. People in prison are abused by other people. And on the outside, they need to adapt. The Volnya initiative is doing an important thing,” she says, adding that funding and personnel issues prevent it from helping more people.
“It is very important that there are mentors, psychologists, and just people who can hold your hand and take you through the trauma of prison,” says Gebremariam, who was released in November 2022 after serving a 2.5-year term for protesting Lukashenka’s disputed reelection.
“It is a pity that so far Volnya does not have enough strength to help more people. And it is a pity that the initiative is still alone.”
Stankevich would probably agree. Like many other social initiatives that rely on the enthusiasm of volunteers, staff burnout and the constant search for funding hamper Volyna’s development. Another issue brought up by both Gebremariam and Stankevich is the falling interest in the topic of released prisoners, who, after all, make up a small fraction of those Belarusians who saw no other choice than to emigrate.
Looking ahead to a time when civil society can again participate in public affairs in Belarus, Stankevich says Volnya has expertise to offer when it comes to reforming the country’s outdated system of guiding prisoners back into society.
“We have a lot of plans. At the moment, of course, we are engaged in basic assistance. More and more people are coming to us. The cases are becoming more and more complex, and it is also important and difficult to work with this,” she says.
“If we had enough human and monetary resources, and probably moral resources as well, we could definitely grow faster and develop,” Stankevich continues. “I really want my staff to be able to afford vacations, to be able to live in comfortable housing, to not have to think about how to pay for food tomorrow.”
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Evgeniya Dolgaya is a Belarusian journalist specializing in social issues. She is the creator of Politvyazynka, a platform for the stories of female political prisoners in Belarus.
