Volha Loika Responded to Statkevich

A few days ago, Mikalai Statkevich published a question from a former party member on his Telegram channel. Part of the question concerned "a certain democratic resource," "oriented towards national culture." Specifically, that "the video channel of this resource regularly gives a platform to an informant, because of whom her colleagues were imprisoned." The question also mentioned "a released political prisoner who admits to cooperating with her torturers, approves of them, and even states that no one has the right to reproach her for this."

It seems the conversation was about Volha Loika and Nasta Loika — their interviews were interpreted this way.

Mikalai Statkevich replied that he has never reproached and will never reproach anyone who signed some "petition" for their freedom; on the contrary, he is always glad that the prison hell has ended for someone.

"It's a different matter when someone resorts to informing, to snitching, for the sake of release. I believe this is the greatest baseness – exchanging one's freedom for the freedom of other people. Informants are scum to me, with whom I have no dealings. Those who indulge them, disseminate their views or life, normalize their baseness. Perhaps there is something similar in the souls of these 'normalizers.' (...)

As for justifying one's own torturers, what comes to mind involuntarily is what I saw in childhood — how a dog licks its owner's boots when he beats it. What must be done to a person to reduce them to the state of that dog?"

Reacting to Statkevich's accusations, Volha Loika noted that criticism from Statkevich rather pleases her, as it indicates that prison has not changed the politician.

"I can repeat once again that no Tut.by employee or any other employee suffered from my personal actions. I had the opportunity not to participate in this film. It would have been worse... It was simply a collective mind that made the decision. Thanks to those who participated. It turned out better, more correctly, not just for me, or rather, not for me. Right now there are just some things that cannot be fully explained. And one should listen to the cops less," Loika states.

Volha gave an interview to a state channel when she was in Belarus and some of her colleagues remained in the pre-trial detention center. According to her, the first person to call her after the release of the propaganda film was Maryna Zolatava's husband, Vasil. In his assessment, Loika's statements were "ordinary grumbling of a hired employee."

"Everyone understands that the Tut.by case is in no way connected with me, that my opportunities to influence employees were exclusively minimal, and thank God I was able to use them as I did. I hope that later we will tell this story in vivid detail; it's quite amusing in general, but rather complex," Volha Loika remarked.

As for Maryna Zolatava, according to Loika, the former chief editor of Tut.by has no complaints against her.

Human rights activist Nasta Loika, in her first interview after imprisonment, explained her attitude towards law enforcement officers:

«You hurt me, but I am ready to forget, forgive you, and not recall it. They say they gave us a chance. "Pardoning" is a chance for a new, better life. We are objects of trade. They gave us a chance by selling us and allowing us to leave. They didn't even allow us; they forcibly removed us. But I will also give them a chance; I won't say anything bad about them. They did their job, they did their job as they knew how and deemed necessary. Whether it's bad or good, effective or ineffective – time will tell, and then we will truly be able to talk. Right now, I see no point in discussing it.»

Nasta Roudava noted that she does not understand such a position and compared it to similar statements by Maria Kalesnikava.

"It seems to me that they are very similar (...) because they so don't want to appear weak, they want to show that this did not affect them in any way, it did not break them, it did not change them, they do not want to condemn and generally return to this topic," Roudava expressed her opinion.

However, Volha Loika offered a different perspective. She said that many released political prisoners she spoke with consciously choose silence or restraint in their words because they made a promise to do everything possible for those who remain behind bars.

"Now it's important to get the others out. I promised that I would try to do something for them. (...) We will tell about our pains and problems later," this, according to Volha, is the motivation of those who are free.

Nasta Roudava, for her part, voiced a popular public opinion that such a stance could be harmful. She noted that if Western partners fight for the release of Belarusians, but the victims themselves avoid the topic of torture after their release, it could create an illusion of "normalcy" of detention conditions and demotivate the international community.

"She doesn't say it was normal. She says: 'I don't want to talk about how it was.' (...) Nasta Loika herself, in her interviews, notes that after previous groups of prisoners, who even cried when describing the terrible experience they had to endure, were released, the conditions improved. The conditions for extraction improved because the world saw what hell it was," Volha countered and called on society for greater empathy and understanding:

«Let's give a person who has just come out of such terrible conditions a little oxygen, a little space, a little opportunity to feel safe, to feel that you are not an object of mockery, not an object of hate, not an object of complaints. That you can improve your health, you can talk about something with a psychologist, you can find out from all your loved ones what happened during this time, you can see everyone, understand what world you are in, and then, perhaps, you will be ready for it. People are not ready to tell about what happened to them just at our request.»

To explain this reticence, Volha used the metaphor of "a man at the doctor's": the more a person is accustomed to being "concrete-strong" and bearing everything on their shoulders, the harder it is for them to admit that something hurts or bothers them.

• 5
• 12
• 3
• 3
• 1
• 1
• 1
• 1