Centerpartiets internationella stiftelse, CIS har besök av Olga Karatch från Vitebsk. Hon berättar:

At the very beginning of the cold day of December 20, 2010, at about after lunch, I was sipping hot tea after six hours of walking on the Independence Square and running around Minsk. I was probably the happiest person in the world, I was sure that no one of the Nash Dom (Our Home) Civil Campaign had been arrested, that everyone had managed to escape both uniformed and plainclothes enforcers with short and long clubs, managed to disappear in dark streets and yards of the troubled city.
I was wrong.
I understood it immediately when I heard a call to my mobilephone. I hate night calls. They are sure marker of the trouble. I still have not pressed the response button, but I am already sure that something bad has happened. The colt transformed into the troubled voice of Kristina Shatikova:
- Olga, we have been taken in. Yes, from the Square, me and Masha. There some enforcers were clubbing a woman, and we could not but get involved, so they also— Well, you know. Now they are delivering us to Moskovski police precinct.
Very soon I was near Moskovski police precinct, and I was not very much surprised to see the row of uniformed enforcers blocking the entrance. I understood immediately that Kristina with her warrior-like character is in big trouble, so I tried to save at least Masha. I managed to figure out who was the chief officer in the row, and I addressed him. I was trying to persuade him as hard as I could. I knew only too well that we must pass the girls something, a pen or a small calendar, at least something. They must know that we are here, that we care about them.
A chocolate bar
One of the enforcers looked yielding. ‘Well, a chocolate bar__ A chocolate bar is probably okay__ okay to pass, yeah? Look, the sister is truly worried.’ He glanced at the other officers, who immediately looked away. I quickly gave two chocolate bars to the officer and scribbled Masha’s and Kristina’s last names. Exactly in four months, in the early morning of April 20, my chocolate came back to me as a symbol of women’s solidarity, as a symbol of our truth.
The 20th of April 2011
On April 20 I was not arrested, I was not even detained at first. I just didn’t want to leave my husband in a troublesome situation, while he would not leave our friend in the same troublesome situation. Enforcement officers included into the apartment where we gathered and insisted that all of us must go to the police precinct ‘for a small talk’. They tried real hard so that this looked as our completely voluntary action, a friendly visit to their police precinct. As for us, we tried real hard to find out what was the reason that we have to go to the police precinct. Later one of the enforcers would explain me how grave our felony was: when you are detained, God forbid you start asking about the reason. In some unwritten hierarchy of felonies that was probably the gravest. It was so serious that the Deputy Chief himself cared to take his time and beat me, hitting and slapping me in the face, with heavily loaded comments on what kind of sex he would like to have with me. After that I was thrown to a cell which is better to be called a refrigerator, for the whole night.
The police mans violence
I was sitting there, beaten and humiliated, curling up and trying to keep warm. Every hour there was a regular check, with a warden looking around cells and cursing heavily. When he saw me for the first time, he looked at me and asked ‘what is the reason you are here?’ I honestly answered that there was no reason, I was just thrown in here. ‘Oh yes’, he said ‘you are those political ones!’
At 2 AM the same warden came up to my cell, now without cursing, studied me again, and handed me a small packet with a reproaching look. ‘Take it’, he muttered, ‘it is from your sister.’ In the packet that was a bottle of mineral water, some toilet paper, and a chocolate bar. A few moments later the chocolate, piece by piece, was melting in my mouth, in spite of the freezing cold around.
Next day, when we were taken to the court, I saw many other new sisters of mine, younger as well as elder. They were giving me small packets with food and warm clothing, people whom I knew, people whom I barely met before, and people completely unfamiliar to me. All of them came to the court to show their support and solidarity.
I know for sure that if some time Aleksandr Lukashenko and his ‘Minister of Interior’ General Kouleshov happened to be jailed, none of their former subordinates would stop near their camera to exchange a couple of words with them and to passed semi-legal chocolate bar from a sister. Because there are no women who would ask to give parcels to those two in the time of their trouble.
Olga Karach, Belarus