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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.”

Illustrative photo Legal qualification: Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute:  Persecution of an identifiable group (civil society) on political grounds. O.P., 52, was the long-time director of a human rights organization “Viasna” (name changed) in one of the regional centers. Their organization was not political in the direct sense: they were not fighting for power. They monitored elections, helped those convicted under administrative articles, and provided legal education. They had existed for 22 years. Over those years, they had helped thousands of people file complaints, win labor-dispute cases, and defend themselves against arbitrariness by local authorities. After 2020, their work became both vitally necessary and deadly dangerous. They documented torture, collected testimonies, and kept lists of detainees. The authorities, who had previously “tolerated” them, now saw them as an enemy. The crackdown began on the morning of 16 July 2021 — the day when searches were carried out across the country at dozens of human rights defenders and journalists. At 7 a.m., they came to O.P. Seven people: three from the KGB, two from the Department of Financial Investigations (DFR), and two “witnesses” who, as it turned out, had been brought along. “Search as part of a criminal case on financing riots,” the senior officer said briefly, handing over a warrant. “Everyone stay where you are.” They worked methodically and destructively. It was not a search for evidence; it was an act of destruction. They tore up floorboards, removed hard drives from all computers, including her student daughter’s old laptop. They seized every flash drive, every notebook, every business card. All bank cards. All cash they found in the apartment — about 300 dollars that O.P. had been saving for a vacation. “Where is the grant accounting?” asked the DFR investigator.“In the office,” O.P. replied. “Then we’re going to the office,” he said. At the office — a small three-room ground-floor flat — a second team was already waiting. The door had been cut open with a blowtorch; the hinges were hanging by a single screw. Inside, everything was turned upside down. System units had been ripped out “with the meat,” wires cut. Folders with personal files of people they had helped were scattered across the floor. “Ah-ha,” the investigator said with satisfaction, picking up a contract from the floor. “Western funding! Lithuania!” O.P. tried to explain that this was an official EU grant, registered with the Department for Humanitarian Aid, for conducting seminars on the rights of people with disabilities. “All of this was legal,” she said. “Legal?” the investigator smirked. “We’ll decide what’s legal here. You fed ‘extremists’ with this money. You churned out complaints to the UN. You shamed the country.” The search ended with the arrest of O.P. and her accountant. They were taken to the KGB pre-trial detention center. The charges were absurd: “Tax evasion on an especially large scale.” The logic of the accusation, later voiced by the Investigative Committee, was as follows: since human rights activity in Belarus is in fact “illegal,” all grants received for it cannot be considered humanitarian aid. Therefore, they are “undeclared income” of O.P. and her colleagues as private individuals, on which they should have paid personal income tax. The “damage” calculated by the DFR exceeded 150,000 dollars. While O.P. was in pre-trial detention, the Ministry of Justice filed a claim with the Supreme Court to liquidate their organization. The grounds: “carrying out non-charter activities” and “storing unregistered symbols in the office” (they had found a small white-red-white flag in a desk drawer). The hearing lasted 40 minutes. The organization’s representative, who came with a power of attorney, was not even allowed into the courtroom. “Viasna,” which had defended people for 22 years, was liquidated. O.P. spent a year in the KGB detention center. Operatives constantly summoned her for “talks,” demanding she admit guilt and “compensate the damage.” She was not allowed to see her family; her correspondence was blocked. In the end, she was sentenced to 7 years in a penal colony. “They calculated ‘damage’ from the money that went to printing brochures on labor rights and to pay lawyers for students,” she said in her final statement, which miraculously made it to the outside world. “They are trying us for helping people. We were the last resort for anyone who came when the state turned its back on them. Now that resort is gone. They didn’t just jail me. They left thousands of people alone with the repressive machine. But they are wrong if they think that by liquidating our legal entity they have liquidated the idea of human rights.”

Polish (foreground) and Belarusian border guards (background) stand near a group of migrants in an improvised camp on the Belarus–Poland border near Białystok, northeastern Poland, 20 August 2021. Source: babel.ua Legal qualification: Article 7(1)(k) Rome Statute:  Other inhumane acts (deliberate use of people as a tool, creation of inhumane conditions causing suffering). UN Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants (state-organized scheme). F.A., 28, was an English teacher in Mosul, Iraq. After his city was destroyed by ISIS and later during the fighting for its liberation, he lost his job and home. He was an educated man, far from war, simply seeking safety for his young wife and three-year-old daughter. In August 2021, he saw an ad on Facebook posted by a “travel agency.” It offered an “easy and legal” path to Europe. Route: Baghdad — Minsk — Germany. Price: $5000 per person. The agency claimed to have an “official agreement” with Belarusian authorities. F.A. sold his car and his wife’s gold jewelry. They received Belarusian tourist visas directly at Baghdad airport. The Iraqi Airways plane was filled with similar “tourists” — families from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan. In Minsk, they were met. The first two days looked legitimate: they were placed in Hotel Belarus, even given a short city tour. “Coordinators”—strong Russian-speaking men in civilian clothes—told them to wait. On the third night, large tourist buses arrived. “We’re going on an excursion to Hrodna,” the coordinator said. There were about 100 people in the buses. They were driven for several hours and dropped in the middle of a dark forest. “Now go,” the coordinator said, pointing his flashlight. “Poland is there. Walk straight.” When people hesitated, men in Belarusian military uniforms with dogs emerged from the darkness. They didn’t speak English. They simply pushed people forward with rifle butts, shouting: “Forward! Go!” F.A., his wife, and daughter walked with the crowd through the forest. After an hour, they reached a tall barbed-wire fence. In several places the wire had been cut. “Look, an opening!” someone shouted. “Belarusians helped us!” They crawled through the gap. They were in Poland. They walked for another hour before searchlights lit them up — a Polish border patrol. The Poles detained them. They cried, begged for help, showed their children. “Asylum! Please!” F.A. shouted. The guards gave them water and rations but said camps were overcrowded. After a few hours they loaded them into trucks and drove them back to the border — pushing them through the same gap back into Belarus. And then the nightmare began. On the Belarusian side, the same soldiers in camouflage were already waiting. “No going back!” they shouted, forming shields. “To Poland! Go to Poland!” They were trapped. In the no-man’s-land between the two borders, in a narrow strip of forest. On one side — Poles, not letting them deeper into the country. On the other — Belarusians, not allowing them to return to Minsk or even to a Belarusian village. “We spent eight days in that forest,” F.A. later told volunteers. “It was hell. Temperatures fell to zero at night. We had no food, no tents, no warm clothes. My daughter cried constantly. We drank water from a swamp. Belarusian soldiers sometimes came. They didn’t give us food. They brought more migrants and pushed them onto us. They filmed our suffering on their phones and shouted at the Poles: ‘Look, fascists, what you are doing!’ Once they brought logs and shields and forced the men to storm the fence. They threw stones at the Poles, hiding behind our backs.” On the fifth day, F.A.’s daughter developed a high fever. She was unconscious. F.A. crawled to the Belarusian guards, holding his daughter, begging for help, for a doctor. “Get lost!” a soldier shouted and kicked him in the chest. On the eighth day, having lost all hope, F.A. saw a group of volunteers on the Polish side. He broke through the fence and surrendered to them. His daughter was immediately hospitalized in a Polish hospital with severe pneumonia and hypothermia. “I realized we were not clients. We were weapons,” he said in the refugee center. “They bought us in Iraq, brought us here, and used us like bullets to shoot at Europe. They did not see us as human beings. To them, we were just a ‘human shield’.”