Victim of a “Repentance Video”

The doors in front of which the repentance videos were recorded. Source: malanka.media

Legal qualification:

• Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute: Persecution on political grounds.

• Article 7(1)(k): Other inhumane acts (intentional infliction of severe psychological suffering, public humiliation).

• Article 7(1)(e): Arbitrary deprivation of liberty.

M.V. was 19 years old. She studied in her third year at the journalism faculty of BSU. She was not an activist, but she had what her curator in GUBOPiK would later call “an excessive sense of justice.” She ran a small Instagram blog about books and life in Minsk. After August 2020 she sometimes wrote about her feelings, posted photos with white ribbons or flowers. In September, during one of the women’s marches, she took a photo where she hugged her friend holding a small handmade sign: “For our children.”

They came for her on November 4, at 6:15 a.m., in her dorm room. Two men in civilian clothes and two in black uniforms with “OMON” patches. They didn’t knock. They broke the flimsy lock, threw her off the bed, and pressed her face to the floor. “Extremist, had your fun?” one of them hissed. Her roommate was there too, curled up in a corner and crying. The search lasted two hours. They turned everything upside down: closets, mattresses, emptied backpacks. They seized her old laptop, her phone, and—oddly—her notes on the history of Belarusian literature.

She was taken to the GUBOPiK building. The interrogation did not begin immediately. First, they locked her for several hours in a small windowless room containing only a single chair bolted to the floor. Then she was taken to an office. The operative, who introduced himself as “Major Vasiliev,” was demonstratively polite. He put on the table printouts of her Instagram posts.

“Maria Viktorovna, why did you do this,” he began, leafing through the pages. “You’re a future journalist. A smart girl. Why do you need these ‘puppet masters’? Why did you get involved with these…,” he said, poking disdainfully at a photo from the march.

M.V. tried to refer to the Constitution, to the right to peaceful protest. The major laughed. “The Constitution? Girl, what world do you live in? Your Constitution now is the Criminal Code. Article 342. Up to three years. And this post—” he tapped another printout—“where you write about the guys from Okrestina… that’s 361, ‘Calls for sanctions.’ Up to twelve years. You’ll be out at 31. Your entire youth in a colony. Is that what you want?”

He gave her water. “Look,” his tone softened, “we don’t need your blood. We can see you slipped. That you were used. Just help us, and we’ll help you.”The plan was simple: she had to record a video. She was to say on camera that she “deeply repents,” that she was “led astray by destructive Telegram channels,” and urge others “not to repeat her mistakes.”

“I won’t do it,” M.V. said firmly.

The smile vanished from “Vasiliev’s” face. He pressed a button. Two masked men entered the room. “So, the hard way,” he said. “You’ll go to Okrestina now. To the ‘politicals.’ They’ll teach you to love the Motherland quickly. And do you know what we’ll do with your friend? The one in the photo? We’ll make her the organizer. And you the accomplice. She’s already testifying against you, by the way. Says you dragged her in.”

It was a lie, but M.V. didn’t know that. She was returned to the windowless room. An hour later she was brought back. “Vasiliev” showed her her phone. “Look how pretty you are here. Now imagine all these photos online… you get the idea. Along with your address and your parents’ phone numbers. Want that kind of fame?”

After three hours of threats, psychological pressure and blackmail, she broke.

They sat her in front of a camera in the same office. “Vasiliev” gave her a sheet with the text. “Look into the camera. Speak sincerely. If I see falsehood—you’ll go to the isolation cell.”

She spoke, stumbling and choking on tears. “I, M.V., repent… I was misled… I urge…” The operator made her do three takes. “Too much crying. You need to sound convincing, not whiny.”

The next day the video appeared in all pro-government Telegram channels. The comments were brutal. Some wrote: “Sellout whore,” “She broke!” Others: “One more enlightened.” Her full name and Instagram link were publicly available.

She was released on her own recognizance. The next day she was expelled from university “for actions discrediting the title of student.” “Vasiliev” kept part of his promise: a criminal case was opened, but not under the “serious” article. Her trial took place two months later. It lasted 20 minutes. Despite the “sincere repentance” on camera, she was sentenced to 3 years of “home chemistry” (restrictive liberty without being sent to an institution).“They didn’t just force me to be silent,” she said later, after leaving the country. “They forced me to speak with their words. They hollowed me out and stuffed me with their text. It was worse than if they had just beaten me. They stole my face.”

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