Voices from Exile: Belarusian Political Prisoners Share Stories of Survival

Wed Nov 05 2025 08:14:56 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

After being released in a deal prompting eased U.S. sanctions, former political prisoners from Belarus recount their harrowing experiences behind bars, illustrating the brutality faced by dissenters under Alexander Lukashenko's regime.

Larysa Shchyrakova and Mikalai Dziadok, two Belarusian political prisoners recently freed as part of a U.S.-Belarus negotiations, share their traumatic experiences of incarceration, highlighting the harsh conditions, psychological torment, and the struggle to integrate back into society. Their stories reflect the broader context of ongoing repression in Belarus, where many political prisoners remain behind bars.

Larysa would have been happier staying in prison for the final four months of her sentence, if she could have gone home at the end of it.

Instead she was bussed over the border from Belarus into Lithuania with 51 other political prisoners. They were released in September as part of a deal to relax sanctions hatched between Belarus's authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko and US President Donald Trump.

During the three years she spent behind bars for extremism and discrediting Belarus, Larysa Shchyrakova missed her mother's funeral. Now she cannot visit her grave.

She left behind her son, her home, her dog and all her possessions. Like most of the freed prisoners, Larysa has no documents and risks arrest if she returns.

You lose everything overnight. It's a traumatic thought that at 52, you're essentially homeless, she told the BBC.

In reality, she had no choice.

Veteran opposition politician Mikola Statkevich got off Larysa's bus and refused to cross the border. He has not been heard of since, and it is assumed he was sent straight back to jail.

Mikalai Dziadok, a 37-year-old activist, spent five years behind bars and was marked with a special yellow tag, which meant tighter control and harsher treatment.

Dziadok recalls how for months he was placed in solitary confinement with prisoners in cells on both sides shouting insults and threats to rape, kill, and dismember him.

Dziadok is sure the prisoners were acting on orders from the guards. He describes their treatment as a systematic attempt to traumatize dissenters. Solitary confinement is routinely used as punishment against political prisoners for even minor violations, such as not greeting guards loudly enough.

Another political prisoner recently released, Dzmitry Kuchuk, said during his time in solitary cells, guards would taunt him by falsely claiming his mother had died or that he would soon be released.

Larysa and her fellow prisoners were freed amid a wave of pardons negotiated between long-time Belarusian leader Alexandr Lukashenko and Donald Trump, coinciding with the lifting of sanctions on Belarusian airline Belavia. However, human rights activists assert that around 1,220 political prisoners remain behind bars in Belarus, charged with various offenses primarily related to political dissent.

Now in Lithuania, Larysa is adjusting to life thanks to the support of the Belarusian expat community. Though she has faced substantial upheaval, she has been reunited with her 19-year-old son over a month after her release.