Pride and integrity in prison. Solidarity actions with Pavel Mazheika held in several countries

Pavel Mazhei­ka, a renowned jour­nal­ist and cul­tur­al and pub­lic fig­ure, was con­vict­ed by the Hrod­na Region­al Court. Judge Mak­sim Filatau, known for deliv­er­ing sig­nif­i­cant polit­i­cal ver­dicts, sen­tenced him to six years in prison.

Pavel’s case was built on almost no real evi­dence. The prosecutor’s alle­ga­tion is dif­fi­cult to believe and appears to be a farce. How­ev­er, behind this play, there are real peo­ple, their lives, and their des­tinies.

To sup­port Pavel, his fel­low jour­nal­ists car­ried out a cam­paign in sol­i­dar­i­ty with him in dif­fer­ent coun­tries. They took pic­tures with his image along with the mes­sage ‘Jour­nal­ism is not a crime’.

“We aim to sup­port Pavel and his fam­i­ly, express­ing our care and faith in him, while we wait for his release. Fur­ther­more, we want to remind every­one that in Belarus, inno­cent and hon­est peo­ple are suf­fer­ing unfair­ly behind bars. At a sig­nif­i­cant cost, these indi­vid­u­als prove the impor­tance of free­dom, democ­ra­cy, and human rights,” stat­ed the ini­tia­tors of the cam­paign.

We invite you to look at the pho­tos and read the con­ver­sa­tions about Pavel we record­ed with rep­utable Belaru­sians.

Andrei Bastunets, head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists: To me, Pavel embodies Hrodna

 — I remem­ber how in 2001–2002, Pavel worked at the Paho­nia news­pa­per. He and the news­pa­per edi­tor Mikalai Marke­vich faced crim­i­nal charges for insult­ing and libel­ing the pres­i­dent in one of their pub­li­ca­tions. BAJ lawyers and attor­neys gath­ered to dis­cuss defense strate­gies and their posi­tion. We were still hope­ful that the law would work. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it did­n’t.

But even­tu­al­ly, Mikalai and Pavel were pun­ished with free­dom restric­tions instead of being put in prison. The penal­ties back then were very dif­fer­ent – peo­ple would be sen­tenced to 2–2.5 years of restrict­ed free­dom, which was then com­mu­tat­ed by a year under amnesty.

This is incom­pa­ra­ble with what hap­pens nowa­days… Cur­rent­ly, the law does not func­tion in Belarus at all. Law enforce­ment per­ceives the term “law” as a syn­onym of “hand­cuffs” or “trun­cheons». I always asso­ciate this with King Stakh’s Wild Hunt and Oprich­n­i­na. The def­i­n­i­tion of “extrem­ism” in Belaru­sian leg­is­la­tion is com­pli­cat­ed and open to inter­pre­ta­tion by the oprich­ni­ki. They can label any­thing as extrem­ism – from mur­ders to likes on social media posts. The prosecutor’s office and courts approve of absurd sen­tences. This is unre­lat­ed to the law.

Why has jour­nal­ism turned into a crim­i­nal offense in Belarus? The obvi­ous answer is that regimes with a strong grip on pow­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly total­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ments, view con­trol­ling the flow of infor­ma­tion as cru­cial to their sur­vival. Jour­nal­ism that is free from gov­ern­men­tal con­trol and influ­ence, specif­i­cal­ly in Belarus, has always faced pres­sure. There were times, specif­i­cal­ly between 2018 to 2019, when the pres­sure on inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism some­what dimin­ished. How­ev­er, the pres­sure remained. In the mean­time, both the media and crim­i­nal laws became increas­ing­ly strict. Until they start­ed pun­ish­ing “dis­senters”.

After the ten­sion of the protests, Lukashen­ka and oth­er offi­cials announced – seem­ing­ly with­out com­pre­hend­ing the words they were using – that they were under­tak­ing a “cleans­ing,” and that the media, jour­nal­ists, and the pub­lic sec­tor were a dis­ease that had to be erad­i­cat­ed. This is how they oper­ate.

I encoun­tered Pavel when he was per­se­cut­ed for the first time. On tri­al, he dis­played brav­ery and his usu­al smile. I almost admire his exu­ber­ance and pos­i­tiv­i­ty, although I am not entire­ly sure what is behind them. He can eas­i­ly switch from one task to anoth­er with­out los­ing his self­hood. He has worked as a jour­nal­ist, TV host, media man­ag­er, and politi­cian. Being next to him always felt uplift­ing.

To me, he per­son­i­fies Hrod­na in many ways. Just like Andrzej Poc­zobut, who is cur­rent­ly serv­ing time in prison for his work as a jour­nal­ist and pub­lic fig­ure. These amaz­ing indi­vid­u­als (and many more could be added) con­tribute to the charm of this fan­tas­tic city.

I would like to talk to Pavel freely in a free Hrod­na as soon as pos­si­ble. This is what I want to con­vey to him. Let us all remem­ber him, do what we can, believe in him, and wait for his release.

Siarhei Budkin, head of the Belarusian Council of Culture: Pavel would appreciate the most if every Belarusian developed their Belarusian centers of life

— Pavel should have long been acknowl­edged as an hon­or­able cit­i­zen of Hrod­na for his remark­able con­tri­bu­tions to the city, such as restor­ing the spir­it of free­dom and cre­ativ­i­ty, hon­or­ing the famous, and com­mem­o­rat­ing the pre­vi­ous­ly for­got­ten names of its cit­i­zens. The series “City Library” which includes 13 pub­li­ca­tions is extreme­ly valu­able.

He viewed Hrod­na as a city that at var­i­ous times pro­vid­ed Belarus with tal­ents, ideas, and inspi­ra­tion. This was his home, which extend­ed beyond the impres­sive Urban Life Cen­ter. To him, it was the cen­ter of his life. The cen­ter of his world.

It is peo­ple like Pavel, who are active, skilled man­agers, pro­fes­sion­als, and true patri­ots, and who estab­lish their own Life Cen­ters in var­i­ous parts of our coun­try, that form the basis of a sov­er­eign Belarus and make it achiev­able, despite the country’s inabil­i­ty to main­tain it by itself. There­fore, Hrod­na res­i­dents, like all Belaru­sians, are for­tu­nate to have Pavel Mazhei­ka.

Know­ing Pavel a lit­tle, I believe the best way to sup­port him is for every con­cerned Belaru­sian to expand and devel­op their Belaru­sian cen­ters of life, in their town or com­mu­ni­ty, cir­cle of friends or fam­i­ly, or even with­in them­selves.

If you can’t cre­ate your own web­site, start a book series, help release a music album, or inspire sci­en­tists for impor­tant research. You can sim­ply study the his­to­ry of your fam­i­ly and coun­try, buy Belaru­sian books and music, or switch to the Belaru­sian lan­guage. All of this would be help­ful to Pavel’s cause.

Heorhi Roi, priest of the Ecumenical Patriarchate: You, dear Pavel, are much freer than the people who judge and imprison you

— As a priest, I can say that the eyes reveal a lot about a per­son. This man has always impressed me with his kind­ness and intel­li­gence. He emanates pos­i­tiv­i­ty and kind­ness through his eyes, words, and actions.

We weren’t quite friends, but when­ev­er we met, our con­ver­sa­tions were friend­ly, inter­est­ing, and mean­ing­ful.

I think that Pavel made one of the great­est con­tri­bu­tions to the life and his­to­ry of Hrod­na by cre­at­ing the Urban Life Cen­ter. This place was full of inter­est­ing intel­lec­tu­al and cul­tur­al expe­ri­ences, a spot for meet­ing peo­ple and spend­ing time togeth­er. I had a great time there.

One of the most mem­o­rable moments was when I bumped into Pavel at the Tsu­dou­nia eth­nic store, and he invit­ed me for a cup of cof­fee in the court­yard. Dur­ing our talk, I was able to speak calm­ly and share my thoughts in peace. Through­out our con­ver­sa­tions, Pavel was able to show his true self as a human being, not just a jour­nal­ist or man­ag­er.

Pavel’s impris­on­ment and crim­i­nal case are com­plete­ly unjust. It’s clear why the regime tar­gets hon­est and good peo­ple like Pavel. Any­one who can and is brave enough to speak the truth and fight for it is seen as a threat to the false­hoods that have ensnared the entire Belaru­sian soci­ety. Judg­ing a jour­nal­ist for their work or a cit­i­zen for their posi­tion is a true crime. As more lies are told, more injus­tice and vio­lence occur, pos­ing a greater cat­a­stro­phe for our peo­ple, since soci­ety can­not be found­ed on false­hoods.

I am con­cerned and pray­ing for Paul. I hope to see him soon. Pavel, you are not alone. Many peo­ple share your suf­fer­ing. Christ is by your side! The Lord Jesus is always with those who suf­fer and endure injus­tice. Christ is with you always, dear Pavel. No mat­ter how much suf­fer­ing you are endur­ing now, may our heav­en­ly Father always help you to see the light and be filled with it. You, Pavel, are much freer than the peo­ple who judge and imprison you!

Ales Pashkevich, historian: For those who now share a prison cell with Pavel, he is a stroke of fate

— Although we were not close friends, I know Pavel Mazhei­ka per­son­al­ly. I knew him best through the pub­lish­ing indus­try. Belaru­sian pub­lish­ers used to exhib­it their books at book fairs in Poland, where they show­cased the “City Library” book-pub­lish­ing project, which was co-found­ed by Pavel.

This project was high­ly regard­ed with­in the region­al pub­lish­ing projects in Belarus, a coun­try that is heav­i­ly cen­tral­ized around the cap­i­tal. The “City Library” stood out for its quan­ti­ty and qual­i­ty of pub­li­ca­tions.

Undoubt­ed­ly, Hrod­na’s stand­ing as Belarus’s sec­ond most impor­tant intel­lec­tu­al cen­ter after Min­sk was also influ­en­tial. Numer­ous tal­ent­ed and pas­sion­ate cre­atives reside in the area. How­ev­er, the mere exis­tence of such indi­vid­u­als is insuf­fi­cient. They gen­er­al­ly require some­one to bring them togeth­er as a uni­fied com­mu­ni­ty, and over the years, Pavel Mazheika’s role in this under­tak­ing has been vital.

Every time I vis­it­ed Hrod­na to deliv­er pre­sen­ta­tions or par­tic­i­pate in events, Mazhei­ka or orga­ni­za­tions found­ed by him were among the orga­niz­ers. He is an active mem­ber of the local com­mu­ni­ty. In today’s Belarus, where author­i­ties sup­press pub­lic activ­i­ty, such ener­getic indi­vid­u­als are the main tar­gets for repres­sion.

Infor­mal meet­ings occurred out­side events or after record­ing his­tor­i­cal pro­grams. Pavel was the life and soul of the par­ty, being cheer­ful, wit­ty, and talk­a­tive. Fur­ther­more, he was intel­li­gent and eru­dite. He had the com­pe­tence to han­dle pri­mar­i­ly intel­lec­tu­al projects. I believe that for those who now share a prison cell with Pavel, he is a stroke of fate. From the lim­it­ed infor­ma­tion we receive from him, he does not lose hope or his sense of self in the inhu­mane con­di­tions. He man­ages to boost morale, uplift and moti­vate his fel­low pris­on­ers even in those con­di­tions.

Although this is not his first dif­fi­cult expe­ri­ence, this one stands out as being espe­cial­ly chal­leng­ing. We can only hope that in his case, the say­ing ‘tri­als do not weak­en but only hard­en the strong’ will be true. Of course, we also hope he will not have to endure suf­fer­ing inflict­ed by the exe­cu­tion­ers for long.

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