This interview is available in Belarusian and is part of a series produced by The Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House and Viasna Human Rights Centre in cooperation with Human Rights House Foundation, featuring five Belarusian human rights defenders: Ales Bialiatski, Uladzimir Labkovich, Nasta Loika, Marfa Rabkova, and Valiantsin Stefanovic.
When did you feel truly free again after your release?
On 13 December 2025, I crossed the border into Lithuania. For me, it was not only a border between countries, but also a border between freedom and captivity. Intellectually, I understood that I was free, but emotionally, during that first hectic evening, I was still frozen. Reality felt like a dream.
It was only the next morning, when I stepped outside the hotel, that I truly felt free. Fresh snow had fallen, Vilnius was quiet, white and clean.
Prison lets go of a person slowly, without rushing. Some prison habits remain. You learn to live again in an ordinary environment. The process of adapting to freedom is still continuing for me today.
After my first prison term, it took me about a year to return to civilian life.
How difficult was it for you to leave Belarus? Do you hope to return?
It was not difficult. Maybe because I left Belarus straight from the penal colony. After four and a half years, I had already grown used to prison. I feel and understand that all of Belarus is now one enormous prison, an occupied zone. What nostalgia can there be for a prison?
I strongly believe that I will return, just as everyone who was forced to leave and wants to return will come back too.
Why do you continue to fight for human rights?
This is not the time to calm down and relax. We still have not achieved the goals we set for ourselves back then. We dreamed that Belarus would become a free, democratic country where human rights were respected. That gestalt is still not closed.
Justice, international justice, and international human rights agreements are now being restricted and attacked from different directions all over the world. There has been a global shift towards authoritarianism. We need to continue our work.
What gives you hope for the future?
The year 2020 showed that Belarusian society had matured and grown. The values we had fought for over the previous 35 years became important to the majority of Belarusians.
Despite the repression and the authoritarian regime, this society can no longer be driven back into the post-Soviet “paradise”.
Sooner or later, and I think in the not-too-distant future, we will achieve the positive changes that the majority of Belarusians want.
What is the most important thing you would like to say to the readers of this piece?
No matter how much they try to convince you, no matter what they tell you, no matter how they try to influence you, no matter how they try to break you: never give up!
What would you say to human rights defenders from different countries who are currently in prison, including those in Belarus?
Every minute, every second, we are thinking about you. Believe that things will get better. You are not alone!
