How Ordinary Belarusians Are Helping Victims Of State Crackdown

Sometimes it's just a handshake or a few words of encouragement. Other times it is a gift of toys for a child, a bouquet of flowers, or money for school expenses.

But despite Belarus's ongoing crackdown on donating or accepting aid for relatives of the politically repressed, ordinary Belarusians -- including in at least one government office -- and their expatriate compatriots are still taking the risk of helping these families.

"The process isn't stopping," commented activist Andrey Stryzhak, director of The Belarusian Solidarity Foundation (BYSOL), a Lithuania-based relief group for Belarusian political prisoners that the Belarusian government has deemed "extremist." "It's becoming only deeper as more and more people join this movement."

Notwithstanding "such unfavorable conditions," Stryzhak said, BYSOL, with around 20,000 private donors, is now "at a peak."

The organization raised 23,000 euros (nearly $25,500) for its 2024 back-to-school program, he claimed.

In January, raids targeted at least 287 Belarusian political prisoners' relatives, including those who received groceries from the U.S.-based nonprofit INeedHelpBY, according to the banned Belarusian human-rights organization Vyasna. Nonetheless, BYSOL, as of late August, had received 265 applications from the families of the politically repressed for grants of 100 euros ($111) per school-aged child, he said.

The European Union and the United States condemned the raids as part of the repression that has marked Belarus since protests against perceived presidential-election fraud broke out in 2020. Belarus has since convicted thousands in politically motivated cases, according to Vyasna, with most of the country's opposition leaders in jail or having fled abroad.

The January raids prompted caution on the part of both expatriate nonprofits and Belarusian recipients of their aid.

Aleksey Leonchik, the head of another expatriate aid group, BY_Help, that Minsk also considers "extremist," said a financial transfer "can even take two months" to reach a recipient "because we have to consider all risks so that neither the courier nor the aid recipient is jailed." BY_Help, based in Poland, is now assisting 500 former prisoners both within Belarus and abroad, according to Leonchik.

Andrey Stryzhak of the BYSOL foundation participates in a protest outside the Belarusian Embassy in Vilnius in July 2023.

But one former prisoner and the relatives of others within Belarus told RFE/RL that fear of the authorities means that many would-be recipients of this help now look elsewhere.

For security reasons, only the first names of interviewees are given here. Details about their locations or children also have been concealed. Information about prison terms and convictions cannot always be provided.

"I believe that many people don't get help because they have to look for it themselves and the foundations are labeled ‘extremist' so people are afraid to write them," commented Andrey, a former prisoner who spent two years in jail for supposedly participating in mass riots -- a reference to the pro-democracy protests that swept Belarus following the disputed 2020 presidential election that handed strongman leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka a sixth term.

'Personal Ties'

Andrey, a middle-aged man who has no regular employment, reported receiving from BYSOL a one-time payment of 300 euros (about $333), as well as other money to prepare his children for the school year.

But Paval, a young man whose wife has been in prison since 2021, said he fears contacting expatriate foundations for help since his young son would be alone if he were arrested.

Aksana, a middle-aged woman who was briefly detained and whose husband spent three years in prison for protesting the 2020 election results, elaborated that, after the January crackdown, "[p]eople hid" and "stopped communicating with a wide circle of (other) people."

Instead, they relied on "their personal ties" for help, she said.

Those ties can be robust: Paval estimates that 80 percent of his assistance has come from within Belarus. Mutual support among the relatives of the politically repressed is strong, he said, since everyone is experiencing the same difficulties.

Strangers sometimes contact him on social media, ask for his address, and then send him fresh food from the market, walnuts, or priority-mail envelopes for sending long letters to his wife in prison, he continued.

Other strangers, he continued, have sent his son warm clothing or toys.

Paval, who works in the services sector, claimed that clients who know that his wife is in prison have paid him up to three times the standard rate for his work.

"It was difficult for me at first to get help or to request it," he recounted. "But over time, I've worked out that if a person wants to support me and my son with nice words, things, or money, I won't refuse, so as not to insult them."

He sees the help as a way of keeping his own "moral, mental" strength up for when "my wife gets out of prison."

Aksana, whose husband spent three years in jail for taking part in the 2020 protests, knows the value of such morale boosters.

She said she would never have been able to afford the roughly $10,000 she spent during her husband's imprisonment on legal fees, care packages, and travel to his prison, more than 500 kilometers away.

"For that reason, I turned to the foundations, and many people in Belarus and abroad helped me," she said.

Aksana said strangers even sent her mother-in-law postcards and bouquets on March 8, International Women's Day.

'A Lot Of People Helped Me'

In September, 16 women will go on trial for providing help to political prisoners; another four face sentencing in October, according to Vyasna.

On September 13, Vyasna reported that activist Hanna Auchynnikava, who was briefly detained in January for sending parcels to political prisoners, had fled Belarus to an unidentified European Union country.

People attempt to bring parcels to detainees at Minsk's notorious Akrestsina remand prison in 2021.

Despite the risks, RFE/RL was told that employees in at least one government office contributed to a fundraising drive for a colleague whose husband had been imprisoned on politically motivated charges.

The colleague, a mother of small children, had been too embarrassed to ask for help, according to coworker Alena. Instead, Alena said she asked their department's several dozen employees to help.

"Although [Lukashenka] supporters grumbled that ‘You should have stayed out of politics,' I confronted them and they also gave me money," she said.

Ultimately, the initiative raised 400 Belarusian rubles, then equivalent to $150, with nearly all her colleagues contributing -- albeit without their manager's knowledge, Alena added.

Aksana and Paval said the help they received prompted them to help others.

Paval emphasized the importance of explaining to prisoners' relatives how to transfer items to inmates, "what it is possible to send and what you can't."

"You have to take the person by the hand and take them everywhere," he said.

Aksana estimated that she has helped several dozen prisoners and their relatives since 2020.

"After all, during my husband's imprisonment, a lot of people helped me," she said.

Written by Elizabeth Owen based on reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus Service