Volha Loika replied to Statkevich

A few days ago, Mikalai Statkevich published a question from a former party member in his Telegram channel. Part of the question concerned "a certain democratic resource" "oriented towards national culture." Specifically, that "the video channel of this resource regularly gives a platform to an informant, because of whom her colleagues were imprisoned." The question also mentioned "a released political prisoner who admits to cooperating with her torturers, approves of them, and even states that no one has the right to reproach her for this."

It seems that the conversation was about Volha Loika and Nasta Loika — their interviews were interpreted as such.

Mikalai Statkevich responded that he has never reproached and will never reproach anyone who signed some kind of "petition" for their freedom, and on the contrary, he is always glad that the prison hell is over for someone.

"It's another matter if someone resorts to denunciations, to snitching, for their release. I believe this is the greatest baseness – to exchange one's freedom for the freedom of other people. Informants are scum to me, with whom I have no dealings. Those who indulge them, spread their views or lives, normalize their baseness. Perhaps there is something similar in the souls of these 'normalizers' as well. (...)

As for justifying one's own torturers, what involuntarily comes to mind is something I saw in childhood — how a dog licks its master's boots when he beats it. What must be done to a person to reduce them to the state of that dog?"

Reacting to Statkevich's accusations, Volha Loika noted that Statkevich's criticism rather pleases her, as it indicates that prison has not changed the politician.

"I can repeat once again that no Tut.by employee or any other employee suffered from my personal actions. I had the opportunity not to participate in this film. It would have been worse... It was simply a collective mind that made the decision. Thanks to those who participated. It turned out better, more correctly, not just for me, or rather, not for me at all. Right now there are some things that cannot be fully explained. And one should listen less to the police," Loika argues.

Volha gave an interview to a state channel while she was in Belarus and some of her colleagues remained in the pre-trial detention center. According to her, the first person to call her after the propaganda film's release was Maryna Zolatava's husband, Vasil. In his assessment, Loika's statements were "just the usual grumbling of a hired employee."

"Everyone understands that the Tut.by case has nothing to do with me, that my opportunities to influence employees were exceptionally minimal, and thank God I was able to use them as I could. I hope that later we will tell this story in full detail; it is very amusing in general, but quite complicated," Volha Loika remarked.

As for Maryna Zolatava, according to Loika, the former editor-in-chief of Tut.by has no complaints against her.

Human rights activist Nasta Loika, in her first interview after imprisonment, explained her position regarding the security forces:

"You hurt me, but I am ready to forget, to forgive you for this and not to recall it. They say they gave us a chance. 'Pardons' are a chance for a new, better life. We are objects of trade. They gave us a chance by selling us and allowing us to leave. They didn't even allow us; they forcibly took us out. But I will also give them a chance; I will not say anything bad about them. They were doing their job; they were doing it as they knew how and deemed necessary. Whether it is bad or good, effective or ineffective – time will tell, and then we can truly talk. Now I see no point in discussing it."

Nasta Roŭda noted that she does not understand such a position and compared it to similar statements by Maryia Kalesnikava.

"It seems to me that they are very similar (...) because they so don't want to appear weak, they so want to show that it didn't affect them in any way, it didn't break them, it didn't change them, they don't want to condemn and generally return to this topic," Roŭda expressed her opinion.

However, Volha Loika offered a different perspective. She recounted that many released political prisoners she spoke with consciously choose silence or restraint in their words because they made a promise to do everything possible for those who remain behind bars.

"Now it's important to get the others out. I promised that I would try to do something for them. (...) We will tell about our pains and problems later," this, according to Volha, is the motivation of those who are free.

Nasta Roŭda, for her part, voiced a popular opinion in society that such a position could be harmful. She noted that if Western partners are fighting for the release of Belarusians, but the victims themselves avoid the topic of torture after their release, this could create an illusion of "normal" detention conditions and demotivate the international community.

"She doesn't say it was normal. She says: 'I don't want to talk about how it was.' (...) The same Nasta Loika, in her interviews, notes that after previous groups of prisoners were released, who even cried while recounting the terrible experience they had to endure, conditions improved. The conditions for their removal improved because the world saw what hell it was," Volha retorted and called on society for greater empathy and understanding:

"Let's give a person who has just emerged from such terrible conditions a little oxygen, a little space, a little opportunity to feel safe, to feel that you are not an object of mockery, not an object of hate, not an object of claims. That you can improve your health, you can talk about something with a psychologist, you can find out from all your loved ones what happened during this time, you can see everyone, understand what world you are in, and then, perhaps, you will be ready for it. People are not ready to talk about what happened to them just because we ask."

To explain this reticence, Volha used the metaphor of "a man at the doctor's": the more a person is accustomed to being "reinforced concrete" and carrying everything on their shoulders, the harder it is for them to admit that something hurts them or that something bothers them.

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