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Women and men in Belarusian prisons have to do hard work. Human rights activists and those affected, including political prisoners, share their experiences with Deutsche Wellen.
“These are working conditions like during slavery,” said Natalia Hersche, a former political prisoner. She has been serving a sentence for participating in protest marches in Minsk, in Gomel prison. “Jobs are not properly equipped. The sewing machine has only one simple wooden leg. Few prisoners are provided with shoes provided for tailors by workplace safety. Working time is six hours a day, with two breaks of five to ten minutes. At 12 o’clock lunch is served. “We often work on the weekends if we are asked to finish the work quickly”, the oppositionist recalls. The prison where she was was used to produce the clothes of the Belarusian prison authorities. But Natalia refused to sew their uniforms. For this reason she was forbidden to take packages and call the family and was put in a cell, isolated alone. She later had to sew work clothes for a construction firm.
Another political prisoner named Maria Kolesnikowa is serving her sentence in the prison we are talking about. Since 2020, she has become a symbol of the opposition movement, which accuses incumbent Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, of rigging the election.
All prisoners in Belarus are obliged by law to work while serving their sentences. Refusal to work is not allowed, otherwise the prisoner is punished with disciplinary punishments that go as long as the imprisonment period. Wasilij Sawadskij, founder of TimeAct, emphasizes that Belarusian labor laws should also apply to prisoners. But the situation shows that we can talk about “slavery”.
TimeAct demanded the rights of prisoners before the Lukashenko regime took the breath away from civil society as part of protests against election fraud. According to Sawadskij, who has worked for almost 25 years in the Belarusian prison system, the reality is this: 40 hours a week, plus unpaid work in the yard and garden without a work contract, with high job demands and pay. small. “Prisoners can not choose the job they do. “They can not be informed about their rights as employees and they can not defend their rights,” said the human rights activist, who is also a doctor.
Six rubles monthly salary
“The first monthly salary left a really big impression on me: 6.66 rubles (it beats 1.80 euros)”, says Natalia Hersche ironically. According to her example, bank manager and politician Viktor Babariko, who has been the most promising candidate in Belarus’ 2020 presidential election and is serving a 14-year sentence in Nowopolozk, initially worked six days a week as a baker in a bakery. For this work he was paid less than two rubles a month (about 0.56 euros). Babarikon was later fired from his job and now works in the bakery industry, although there are still problems with working conditions, such as high temperatures and poor ventilation.
Human rights activists say wages are too low because they deduct the cost of food and clothing, other costs and fines. “For political prisoners, work is a means of punishment. For the rest of the prisoners, work can not be a means of education at all. “There is no way anyone can improve when hard and dangerous work does not bring them material benefits,” said Pawel Sapelko, a lawyer at the Belarusian human rights center Viasna.
Production at the expense of prisoners
Another reason for using prisoners as cheap labor is the benefit that prisons make. The Belarusian prison authorities have 15 enterprises and nine factories under their jurisdiction. Prisoners are mainly used in the processing of wood and metal, in the production of clothes and shoes, in agriculture as well as in industry. They produce spare parts for the car manufacturer MAZ, in Minsk, for the MTZ tractor plant and for other factories.
On the website of the prison authorities, which resembles the business card of a commercial firm, you can get an idea of the products that prisoners make. A 121-page catalog includes not only the special clothes they produce, but also shutters, sidewalks, windows, furniture and sofas.
Prior to the imposition of Western sanctions against Belarus, some of the prisoners’ products were even exported. According to data from the International Human Rights Association (IGFM) based in Frankfurt am Main, data released along with Belarusian human rights activists, some of these products are still available to be bought in countries outside Belarus.
“Until recently, Nowosady prison sold furniture abroad. “Iwazewitschi prison supplied France with its products, if I am not mistaken,” said human rights activist Wasilij Sawadskij, adding that prisons could even compete with each other.
Information on working conditions is kept confidential
From official sources one can not learn about the conditions in which the prisoners work. “Any information about prisons in Belarus is kept key,” said lawyer Pawel Sapelko. Information comes out either from the prisoners themselves or from those coming out of prison.
According to Sapelko, there are constant complaints about violations of security conditions. “Not all prisoners are provided with protective clothing and tools. Prisoners often work in the same clothes as they go to eat and stay in the living space. “In many prisons, production is done with old machinery, which causes incidents, which are rarely recorded,” says the representative of “Viasna”.
Former political prisoner Natalia Hersche says: “When we went to work, there were five or six groups working at the same time. In addition, the halls began to be painted and the paint smelled bad. A woman fainted and fell between sewing machines. She was pulled out and sat for half an hour on the bench. Then he had to come and continue sewing. But after ten minutes she fainted again. An ambulance was finally called. Three weeks later I saw that woman again. “She was walking with a cane because she had a cerebral hemorrhage.”
Pressure on political prisoners
The jobs given to political prisoners in prison are often used as a means of pressure. The Viasna Center recognizes cases where prisoners are sent to work in heavy industry. So for example they had to saw wet wood, make cable insulation by hand or extract metal from old car wheels.
“Such jobs can be called compulsory jobs. This is done not only to demoralize the prisoners, but also to extract money from them “, says the human rights activist, Pawel Sapelko./DW
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