They Were Detained By Armed Men

28.10.2025, 13:00 charter97.org

They Were Detained By Armed Men28.10.2025, 13:38 3,044 Photo: Lotta HärdelinSwedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter - about the coordinators of "European Belarus".They were kept in colonies and prisons in Belarus: without visits, letters, often without phone calls, parcels and books. Suddenly, the cell door opened and they were forced to leave the country with about 50 other political prisoners. They were greeted with the words, "President Trump has released you. It's over now." But what really happened?The three men are walking along the banks of the Niemen River. As the last rays of the sun mirror the water, they talk about their unexpected release from the infamous prisons of dictator Lukashenko.Just a few weeks ago, they were still in Lukashenko's penal colonies. Evgeny Afnagel, Andrei Voynich and Maksim Viniarski were sentenced to prison terms of five to seven years for "organizing mass riots."The journalists of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (translated by Charter97.org) met with the former political prisoners at a sanatorium in the small town of Birštonas in central Lithuania. There they rested for a week after years of physical abuse, disgusting food, lack of medical care and mental terror. "I haven't seen this much green in more than four years," said Eugene Afnagel, looking at the trees around him.They are all members of the European Belarus civic campaign, one of the country's democratic movements. They were arrested after a popular uprising against the rigged presidential election in August 2020. Protests were then suppressed by security services and riot police, and thousands of Belarusians were arrested."We knew we were under surveillance. When they blocked cellular communication, I realized that I would soon be arrested. And so I was: five minutes later, armed security officers started breaking down the door to the apartment where I lived," says Yevgeny Afnagel about his arrest on September 25, 2021.His comrade Andrei Voynich was arrested at the same time in another place."I heard a noise outside the window, looked out, saw a laser sight pointed at my head, and then they broke into the apartment," says Andrei Voynich.Maksim Vinyarsky had been hiding from Lukashenko's security service for several months, but eventually KGB officers also knocked on his front door. When he didn't open, they sawed open the door, and men with guns drawn stormed in.Like his friends, he was taken to a detention center. It was the notorious "Volodarka" in the center of Minsk, built in the early 19th century and used by the Russian Tsarist guards to hold revolutionaries. One of the most famous was ironically Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Belarusian who later founded the Soviet secret police.After seven months, they were transferred to a prison in Mogilev and then brought to different parts of Belarus.Maksim Viniarski arrived at a penal colony near Vitebsk, where he was placed in a cell with rowdy convicts and drug addicts. "They used everything to break and humiliate us. And then they locked me in a SHIZO for 44 days straight, without the right to write letters or read books," he says.There are several degrees of hell in Lukashenko's prisons. None of them want to go into detail about how they were tortured. Others who have been released have testified about how they were beaten, burned in the face with cigarette butts, pepper-sprayed and strangled.Evgeny Afnagel says he spent most of his sentence in a so-called "covered prison": no visits, no packages. Many prisoners spend several months there incommunicado."When we were taken to the KGB detention center in Minsk on September 10, we assumed that a new charge would be brought. But the next day we were taken to the border with Lithuania," says Yauhen Afnagel.There the prisoners were transferred to another bus and transported across the border crossing. Immediately after crossing the border, one of them suddenly got off the bus. A presidential candidate in the 2010 election, social democrat Nikolai Statkevich, sentenced to 14 years in prison refused to be forcibly deported from his homeland.Surveillance video could later be seen of masked men bringing Statkevich to Belarus. He has been missing ever since. No one doubts that Statkevich is imprisoned in any of Lukashenko's camps or prisons.The others are waiting for a temporary residence permit in Lithuania and a travel document that will allow them to travel to other EU countries.PATREONSupport the website Write your comment You can support the website Charter97.orgMULTI-CURRENCY ACCOUNT FOR ASSISTANCE:Bank's name: Bank Millennium S.A.Address: ul. Stanislawa Zaryna, 2A, 02-593, WarszawaIBAN: PL97116022020000000216711123SWIFT: BIGBPLPWName of the account holder: Fundacja “KARTA ‘97”Purpose/title of payment: Donation for statuary aimsYou can contact us by the e-mail charter97@gmail.comFollow Charter97.org social media accountsFacebookYouTubeX.comvkontakteok.ruInstagramRSSTelegram