“19 women in a 4-bed prison cell”
By: Voices Belarus
Tags: Women, Belarus, Prayforbelarus, Police, Protest

“19 women in a 4-bed prison cell”

Evgenia Veremeychik works as a project manager in an IT company. On November 8th, she went to the Sunday protest march with her sister Julia. Evgenia could come back home only on Wednesday, three days later. All that time the girl spent in Zhodino prison, where she and her sister had to get along with 17 more women, even though the cell was for only four people. Evgenia wrote a touching post on Facebook about her cellmates. We found out from her the details of how 19 women were put in one prison cell and how they arranged their life in the prison.

Detention: “Julia, let’s go home. It’s not too late to leave.”

Evgenia got into the paddy wagon, in fact, because of her sister Julia. By November 8th, she was in prison twice: the first time was from August 9th to 14th in Okrestina detention center, the second one was after one of the women marches.

“Julia still keeps on going to protest marches, I also always go with her. When we were already near the “Gallery” shopping mall, we saw that they started to detain people. I saw that my sister felt bad. She is now taking antidepressants to improve her condition after the first two arrests,” explains Evgenia. “Julia sat down on the porch. People were running around from the riot police, because they were grabbing people … Sister burst into tears. I say: “Yul, let’s go home. It’s not too late to escape, we’ll get out somehow.”

Evgenia’s sister refused — they went closer to Stella monument. Most of the protesters were on the grass, above the roadway. She says that there were several thousand of them — it is difficult to assess, because they were all scattered around. Evgenia confesses: it seemed that if they did not go out on the road right now, police vans would simply occupy the road and start detaining everyone. Therefore, the girls, like a dozen more women, decided to step on the road.

“Almost no one followed us. And then we saw a cordon in front of us. With the side vision, I see that my sister is being grabbed. You have even posted a photo of her detention. Subconsciously, I realized that I had a small child, so I was unlikely to be imprisoned for a long time. Therefore, remembering the state of my sister, I went to the shields and said: “Then take me with her too.” I wanted to support my sister, to be nearby for at least some time.”

Evgenia is laughing: riot militiamen did not particularly resist. Like, would you like to go to the paddy wagon? Please come in.

“However, they dragged me into the car. I asked why did they do that, because I did so voluntarily and could go without their help. So we ended up in a paddy wagon, and only then in the Sovetsky district police department. Yulia’s phone was not taken away, and we managed to send geolocation to our family in order to tell them where we are.”

Police department: “We agreed on the red and white fabric in the inventory record”

In the Sovetsky District police department, Evgenia had to stand for several hours “stretching” — this is the position by the fence with the arms raised up and legs wide apart.

“Everything started with me. At first we stood in the courtyard just facing the fence, hands back. A woman came up to us and asked us several questions from the list: name and surname, work place, whether we had children. The guy standing a few people from me said that he worked as a developer at Wargaming. I whispered something like “tanks with the people”, but at such volume that he could hear me. But this was also heard by a police department officer, who said: “Let’s stretch this very talkative one.”

Other girls tried to stand up for Evgenia, but they, as “compassionate”, were put next to her. In total, there were eight women in the Sovetsky District police department — all of them later met each other in one prison cell in Zhodino.

“Nobody took the сare packages in the Sovetsky District police Department for us. There was no food, if you really ask, they could take you to the toilet,” recalls Evgenia. “We spent all the time in the department standing. There is only a small smoking room with benches for three seats. They gave the chance to sit down for my sister, because she started vomiting, another girl Nastya, who was feeling bad, and a guy whose leg was broken. It became clear after the ambulance arrived.”

Evgenia Veremeychik. From Facebook post

Nastya (28 years old) was at the police department. Everyone in her family had already been in jail. On Tuesday Nastya had to meet her brother from the prison, but now, I hope, her brother will meet Nastya. She is an excellent player in Charades! You should have seen Karpenkov performed by her!

In the evening, it became very cold in the courtyard of the police department, it started raining. People, as Evgenia says, were shivering. But she was lucky: she was warmly dressed, because she counted on such a scenario. While the detainees were standing in the street, “investigative actions” were carried out in the basement of the building.

“From time to time people in civilian clothes came up to us, they pulled someone out of the line at the fence and invited us to pass. It was either an inventory of things, or filming with a camera, or taking fingerprints, or signing official records — everyone went through these procedures,” says Evgenia. “This call to action was even to some extent a joy, because you could at least stay in a warm room.”

From all of the events in the police department Eugenia mostly remembered the moment of the belongings inventory. The girl who did it recorded the car key, bank card, removed shoelaces, and a wedding ring. The detainee also had a White-Red-White-flag with the emblem “Pahonya”. It was not indicated in the inventory list — the police officer threw it to trash.

“I refused to sign the inventory record, as it lacked one of my things The girl started yelling that I was a “banderovka” (Bandera follower) and that she was taking this “rag”. Then I demanded to issue an act of confiscation. After that, she put the flag on the floor and began trampling on it, keeping on abusing me. I tried to point out that under the same flag Lukashenko took the oath in 1994, but she replied that it didn’t matter, because fascists used it even earlier. It all ended with another police officer coming, as I understood — higher in rank, and said that if I want to “record the rag”, then it should be mentioned. I also did not agree to sign this option, we agreed only on “fabrics of white-red-white color”.

The detainees were sent to Zhodino only late in the evening: it felt like around 9–10PM. Men were kept on their knees, women were sitting on the benches.”

Prison conditions: «The best places were on the floor under the beds»

Evgenia says that at first they were happy, because, according to rumors, Zhodino is much better than the prison in Okrestina Street. And the judges were supposed to be better there too: they give fines more often than prison days. Spoiler: in the situation of our hero it turned out to be the opposite.

“In Zhodino we were told to walk on white-red-white flags along the corridors — they were laid like red carpets. From the searches I remember the moment with the girl Katya — she couldn’t get the earrings out her ears, it seemed, something was wrong with a clasp. The prison staff had such humor saying that they will bring a saw and cut her earlobes. Of course she was scared. But they didn’t do it.”

Evgenia Veremeychik. From Facebook post

Varvara Alekseevna. There will be shock content here. Varya is the mother of seven children, six are minors, and the eldest one was detained with her. She’s freaky! In tattoos, she exudes wisdom, fortitude, love for children.She goes on marches because the future of children is scary. They kept her locked up for 75 hours, then they gave her 30 base units fine.

Lyudmila. Together with her husband, she leads a group of builders. She knows everything about home renovation (seems like me too now). Her tales about reconstruction did not let us despond. Lyudmila’s daughter is 26 years old and has a job offer in Britain. Lyudmila goes to marches because she wants to see her future grandchildren more than once a year. I am already envious of those who will listen to her jokes for the remaining 11 days.

When Evgenia saw that the prison cells were built for four, she stood closer to her sister so that they would not be separated. However, all eight detained women from the Sovetskiy district police department were placed in one prison cell. Two more groups of girls were added later that day: they came from the Moscow and Leninsky district police departments. So there were 19 cellmates.

“We were told that until we were not judged, there would be no mattresses, bed linen and nothing at all. On Monday we were all given two loaves of bread — food is also not allowed, since we were not in the lists. Already on Tuesday morning we were given oatmeal with milk, some ate it: by that time their stomachs ached. For lunch, they gave borscht — I also ate it,” the girl describes. “The situation with the WC … Can you imagine what it looks like in Okrestina Street detention center? It is fenced off with a wall and even has a door. In Zhodino, the toilet is fenced off with a small wall, which is about knee-deep, very low. Of course, there is no door and everything can be seen.”

The water was only cold. But someone still tried to wash in such conditions. Good thing: when the girls asked, they were given pads and toilet paper.

“There was very little air in the cell. We saw that the window was opened a little, but it was hidden behind several layers of bars and bolts. If you feel bad, you could crawl up to the crack and breathe somehow. We asked the guards to open the “feeding window” — it is clear that it was not a door, but even that was “not allowed.”

The beds were an unexpected problem. In Okrestina detention center, they look like a large wooden flooring on which, in theory, you can lie down without a mattress. In Zhodzina, the bed is made of crossed iron sticks that dig into the legs. Now — a week after lying on them — Evgenia’s legs look like she was beaten.

“The best places we had were on the floor, under the beds or under the table. There, at least the light does not shine so bright, actually, it was not turned off at all. Also “not allowed”,” notes Evgenia. “We tried to fit so that all 19 people were as comfortable as possible. We put a coat or whatever we had on, making flooring of clothes. If someone was disturbed by noise, we tried not to talk. And, of course, we pulled masks over our eyes so that the light bulb did not shine so bright. We also left ourselves a couple of mugs after they brought us tea, so that we could at least drink water from the tap.

There were two women in the prison cell: the one was under 60 (she is now imprisoned for 15 days), the other one was 61 year old. The cellmates clapped their hands to attract the attention of the guards and ask for pills for them. They were given, but it took a long time to wait. In addition, there was a woman who had recently overcome a stroke.”

Evgenia Veremeychik. From Facebook post

Larisa Valentinovna. Another friend from the paddy wagon. Larisa is 60, and she did not miss a single march. Neither female, nor pensioner, nor Sunday ones. When she felt completely unbearable in the prison cell, she asked the guard for the pills for the headache, which were in her purse made of llama fur. She was imprisoned for 15 days.

Eleanor is 61 years old. All three days Elya was wearing a sports top and leggings, because she went to the march right from the gym. I remember her and do not believe that she is 61. I would like to have such a body in my 30! She told us about her son, who lives with his family abroad. She also said that “somewhere there are countries where the police help rather than demolish the people.”

“The guards usually answered one question at a time. We would like what time it is, when the mattresses will be given, when they feed us or give the pills. We had to decide what was more important to us, but if we needed medicine, of course, we asked for it,” Evgenia smiles. “If not, then more often we asked about the time. We realized that mattresses and food would not be given anyway, so there is no use to beg. Sometimes we asked the question whether Lukashenka was still alive. They replied to us: “Still alive.”

As for the funny moments, Evgenia remembers how everyone was eating the crumbs from Snickers. One girl in her clothes had a wrapper from it and a tiny part of the chocolate itself. She recalls, they were lickjng their fingerx and taking the crumbs.

All these women were judged on Wednesday, November 11th. To do this, they were taken from Zhodino to the Okrestina detention center the day before. Evgenia suggests: they did that in order the detainees did not receive the care package, which they generally received in Zhodino on Wednesdays. On Thursday, November the 12th, the women, who were given 24 hours, were sent to Baranovichi so that they would not receive a care package from Okrestina either. Here the prisoners receive them on Thursdays.

Everything ended for Evgenia on Wednesday (the girl was fined), but her sister Yulia remained in jail of 15 days.