Nasta Loika: The KGB pushes for people to stay, the MIA — for them to leave

From a story about a dog — to plans for prison reform

Nasta Loika begins the meeting with a story that, at first glance, has nothing to do with politics. After her release and relocation to Poland, she went to the Czech Republic — to her dog. They hadn't seen each other for almost four years. "I was able to meet him. He feels very well, despite being elderly, he's ten years old," she recounts.

On the day of her detention, according to Loika, the security forces threatened to kill her dog. Later, in the penal colony, she was convinced that he had died. "I had a moment when I was going through that. But despite all that, he's alive, he's fine, and we were able to see each other. It's quite a pleasant happy ending," says the human rights defender. She adds that she now hopes to see him more often, and immediately extends this personal story to the experience of other people:

"I hope that all people will also have the opportunity to reunite with their loved ones, relatives, animals, and everyone else they would like to. And I sincerely believe that this moment will come."

After her release, the human rights defender returned to work at Human Constanta, but the prison experience, she admits, changed her professional priorities. One of the main topics now is penitentiary reform.

At the same time, Loika speaks not only about penal colonies. She wants to look at the entire system: the Criminal Code, investigation, courts, punishment, and what happens to a person after conviction:

"It's not that I know how it should be. Rather, I want to organize public discussions, research: what exists in other countries, what could be adapted."

The idea, according to the human rights defender, is to prepare various reform scenarios in advance. "In case the Belarusian authorities decide to implement such a reform, so that it's already clear step-by-step what to do," Loika clarifies.

Another topic she began to view differently after the penal colony is people with alcohol addiction. "These are people who are abandoned not only by their relatives but also by society, and the state doesn't help them," she says. For Loika, this is part of a broader problem of closed institutions, where people are often simply isolated.

"Providing a bed, providing basic food — that's not enough. People have a much wider range of needs. And simply isolating them while thinking that this is how it should be is one of the big problems," emphasizes the human rights defender.

"You can describe the first twenty minutes after waking up"

From the audience, Loika is asked how one could live in prison for four years.

"Differently. Sometimes it was very difficult. Well, it was even very difficult," she admits. But instead of the most dramatic episodes, she offers to imagine a typical morning in a penal colony.

"To understand life in a penal colony, you can describe the first 20 minutes after waking up," Loika says. Wake-up is at six. By 6:20, you already need to be ready to leave. In twenty minutes — manage to use the restroom, brush your teeth, put away your belongings, make your bed correctly, and prepare for the dining hall.

"It's quite a challenge," she smiles.

But when Loika talks about the penal colony, people constantly emerge alongside difficult memories. "Sometimes these were very warm feelings and quite good memories, despite everything, because there were wonderful people there," the human rights defender recounts.

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She especially mentions the internal solidarity among women. "There was a lot of support among us, horizontal, with each other. I met wonderful girls, and I even correspond with some of them now," she says.

According to Loika, she also felt support from outside — even with restrictions on letters, calls, and visits. "I knew that many people remembered me, worried, were doing something. And when I got out, I only became convinced of it. So I lived in anticipation and hope," she says.

Not just political prisoners

The conversation about prison experience gradually shifts to people who are talked about much less in the Belarusian public sphere.

"I really want to start talking about non-political women. There are many very unjust cases there," says Loika. She specifically mentions women who suffered domestic violence and later found themselves in the dock.

"The fact that women receive huge sentences for self-defense, even though they were simply defending themselves from domestic violence, — these are very common things," the human rights defender recounts.

The problem, according to her, continues in the penal colony. "Women are not provided psychological assistance afterward. They are released and return to the same men, and essentially, it all continues," Loika explains. After prison, she admits, there's a desire to delve deeper not only into detention conditions but also into how crimes are classified in Belarus and to what extent courts consider self-defense.

Another topic that the human rights defender began to see much better from the inside is inclusivity. "While I was in the colony, there was a woman with one leg. But even to get to the dining hall, you have to climb three steps," Loika recounts. A steep staircase also leads to the medical unit, and then you have to climb further to specialists' offices. "As if there are no people with disabilities in Belarus," she notes.

Loika also mentions what she calls gender insensitivity: the absence of proper changing rooms at the factory, cells and toilets that can be subject to video surveillance.

Reform the system or build a new one?

From the audience, she is asked what to do with the Belarusian prison system in the future — reform it or virtually rebuild it from scratch.

Nasta Loika sees two possible paths. The first is to bring Belarusian prisons up to international standards. The second is to try to create a system where the main goal is not punishment itself, but rehabilitation.

"We can take some cool experience from around the world and create a super-humane, super-effective, super-economically justified new system," she muses.

Loika allows that it might be very different from today's penal colonies. "It could be a completely different system — including a non-custodial one, I also allow for that," says the human rights defender. But the first steps, according to her, are quite concrete: review the Criminal Code, sanctions, and the approach to punishment itself.

From here, the conversation moves to an even more controversial question: does it make sense today to appeal to Belarusian state bodies when the system itself violates human rights? Loika believes that one should not prematurely abandon all mechanisms. She recalls her time working at Viasna, the Human Rights Center, when human rights defenders filed complaints about detention conditions, not knowing if there would be any result. Later, a former detainee told her that employees of the Temporary Isolation Facility linked building renovations, in part, to those complaints.

"I was at the Temporary Isolation Facility in 2011 and again in 2022. I want to say that these are completely different buildings," Loika notes. "It turns out there are mechanisms we can influence, we just didn't use them much before," she concludes. This topic sparks a debate in the audience. Loika admits that after a month abroad, she particularly acutely felt the difference between her perspective and that of some people who have long lived in emigration.

"We don't even try to look for options and think that there's a scorched earth in our minds and that's it. And we sit at home and just argue online," she says.

In her opinion, instead of prematurely considering any communication meaningless, one can look for specific problems where at least a minimal possibility to change something remains. "Not just from a critical position that everything is bad, but from a constructive position: here we see such a problem, let's try to solve it calmly together," Loika explains.

So what about the KGB and liberalization?

In an interview with Zerkalo in April, Nasta Loika said that the KGB and MFA "have always been symbols, flagships of liberalization periods" and that they "are more on our side."

Nasta admitted that she does not recognize her own phrasing about the KGB as a "flagship" of liberalization (that interview was agreed with Loika. — Nashaniva).

But she does not deny the idea itself about the different roles of security structures in different periods. Loika recalled the periods of 2008–2010 and 2015–2020. According to her observations, during the intensification of repressions, the Ministry of Internal Affairs played a greater role. When negotiations and relative liberalization began, the KGB and MFA became more prominent.

"The more active the KGB becomes and the greater role they play, the more it is a sign that something related to liberalization is happening," she notes.

The human rights defender says she sees certain signs of such activation even now.

"I know that the KGB internally strongly advocates for people to stay in the country. They are interested in having someone to watch, to collect information, to do something. The MIA, on the contrary, pushes for everyone to be expelled from Belarus. I see a conflict of interests," she says.

At the same time, she again emphasizes: it's not about the KGB becoming someone's ally. Its activity, according to Loika, can only be considered as one of the possible indicators of processes within the system.

"Belsat" also asked another clarifying question: if a person is no longer imprisoned for an online comment but is forced to delete it, can this be considered a sign of liberalization?

"This is a repressive system. It has nothing to do with human rights," Loika answers. "If they ask to delete it simply because a person expresses an opinion that does not coincide with the ideology — this is undoubtedly a violation of human rights," she emphasizes.

But Loika explains her earlier reflections on such a model as a search for a less harsh scenario.

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"For me, it was rather an attempt to find some compromise options for a transitional period in all this horror that is happening," she says. And she formulates it simply: "Don't imprison, but let's try to negotiate somehow." As an example, she mentions cases for donations, where a person might not be sent to a penal colony but is required to pay a sum many times over.

From the audience, Loika is countered: some do manage to "buy their way out," while others are still imprisoned. The human rights defender admits that there is no single mechanism and it's impossible to predict how the security forces will act in a specific case.

"I don't have definite answers as to how it might be," she says.

At the end of the meeting, Loika is asked what she plans to do next — international advocacy or attempts to work directly on Belarusian problems. To which she replies that she plans to write appeals, engage in advocacy campaigns, and use the legal mechanisms that still remain. Nasta says she will be careful when contacting people in Belarus, so as not to create additional risks for them.

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