John Silver Interview: Informational Isolation is the Hardest

“When I arrived in Zhodz­i­na in mid-June and start­ed receiv­ing dozens of let­ters, I real­ized I had total­ly lost my anonymi­ty. Cen­sors were dis­sat­is­fied to have lots of let­ters because they had to read them all. But for detainees there is a grave prob­lem of time-killing. I received lots of let­ters and I tried to respond to them all, and days went by faster. This is real sup­port for those in infor­ma­tion­al iso­la­tion. This is the tough­est, and not the food or con­fine­ment con­di­tions.

You can sub­scribe to any­thing in Bel­posh­ta cat­a­logue. I sub­scribed to Bel­gaze­ta, Nasha Niva, Nar­o­d­naya Volya, Nar­o­d­naya Gaze­ta, Belorusy I Rynok, Nasha Slo­va. SB.Belarus Segodya was brought for free, and I was glad to have even this when there was noth­ing else. At lib­er­ty, you can look through hun­dreds sources of infor­ma­tion, where­as in prison – only news­pa­pers and let­ters.”

Thanks to such “mon­i­tor­ing” of print mass media, could you tell what they lack?

“Our jour­nal­ism cov­ers very lit­tle busi­ness.  There are rich per­sons in deten­tion, and nobody ever needs them once they are there. Busi­ness should be keen on inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism that would pro­tect from secu­ri­ty agen­cies. They think that now every­thing is fine and one can make mon­ey, so damn those media. But at Val­adar­ka (KGB prison) oth­er things start.

We don’t have media that would write for teenagers in “their lan­guage”. That is why they pass time on social nets and get to learn from social and polit­i­cal life from pic­tures.

I was crit­i­cized that my arti­cles were aggres­sive and with obscene lan­guage. But this is exact­ly the lan­guage of this very audi­ence. Sev­er­al years lat­er, they will become vot­ers, work­ers, a lot of things will start to depend on them.

I have to cre­ate the con­tent that would attract even Russ­ian-speak­ing audi­ence. When some­body shapes a hero from one’s own envi­ron­ment, that would be a nar­row cir­cle, that would be work for clos­er envi­ron­ment; on the con­trary, we need to crosslink audi­ences. For exam­ple, we’ll write an arti­cle on pol­i­tics or his­to­ry inter­est­ing­ly and in Russ­ian. Mean­time, a text in the style “10 best porn starts”, “whom dates Kseniya Sit­nik” – in Belaru­sian. Russ­ian-speak­ing audi­ence will also read these arti­cles because they are appeal­ing. As a result, the lim­its of our “ghet­to” will be blur­ring.”

In your opin­ion, do Belaru­sian mass media respond ade­quate­ly to mod­ern-day chal­lenges, and have they tak­en les­son from the Ukrain­ian events?

 «I think that all Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists should learn Eng­lish and fol­low West­ern media. We always take time in the spheres of new ten­den­cies. The explana­to­ry jour­nal­ism migrat­ed from the US to Europe, then to Rus­sia, and then it’s here. Only now the sig­nif­i­cance of social nets has been acknowl­edged. In the West, it became clear yet three years ago that social nets demand­ed active work.

Now, in order to win read­ers’ adher­ence, to com­pete with the Russ­ian media, one should be up-to-date.

When I start­ed writ­ing about war and mil­i­tary threat in 2014, many Face­book users told me I was inad­e­quate, rad­i­cal, ultra-fight­er. This year in Zhodz­i­na I take a news­pa­per and see an arti­cle some­thing like “How to get ready for war”. Now this issue has earned much more atten­tion, it is not doubt­ed.

But I think again that we still lag behind in this infor­ma­tion­al war.

We have to make more inves­ti­ga­tions. For exam­ple, when the pro­pa­gan­dist Vladimir Solovy­ov arrives in Min­sk. He is a con­tro­ver­sial fig­ure, one can explore a lot about him. But we keep relaxed, drink cof­fee and think: “Well, there is a threat, but not tonight any­way.” If we ignore the event, the Russ­ian mass media will show the right pic­ture: Solovy­ov arrived to Min­sk, gath­ered the whole hall, etc.

We’ve got to react the same way. Remem­ber the case with Starikov, who ini­tial­ly planned to make a kind of a tour around Belarus, but in the end, hum­bled in the Moscow House and that was it (Russ­ian ide­ol­o­gist and writer Niko­lay Starikov vis­it­ed Min­sk a year ago – note).»

Is it easy to dis­turb soci­ety in Belarus by pro­pa­gan­da instru­ments?

«If Russ­ian mass pro­pa­gan­da machine sets to do it, that will be very easy. Now they work over Belarus with low bud­gets. When I was in Bryan­sk, I watched RenTV and saw many reports with the mes­sage like “Lukashenko is a trai­tor”, “Lukashen­ka is cun­ning, he wants to use Rus­sia only as a donor, he does not rec­og­nize LNR, DNR etc”. This appeared not on cen­tral chan­nels, but still it already exists.

One can say that we are trai­tors, one can cre­ate nation­al­ists, one can spon­sor and stage some provo­ca­tion. The ques­tion is that the soci­ety, the state, mass media and media per­son­al­i­ties have to keep the infor­ma­tion­al field.»

You had left for Ukraine in autumn 2015, and in Jan­u­ary 2016 you were detained in Rus­sia. Why did you get back so fast from Ukraine, what went wrong?

«I’d been think­ing of return upon depar­ture. It was not clas­si­cal emi­gra­tion. I left also to make peo­ple know about what was going on. Here, under pledge of secre­cy, I could speak about myself for one more prison term. I did not plan to leave for long. It would be eas­i­er to serve 2 – 3 years than wan­der for 15 years far from Moth­er­land, far from rel­a­tives and friends. This is my out­look. I like liv­ing here even with all hard­ships.

When I was Kyiv, I met Pavel Sheremet and the guys from Brut­to. Every­body was telling about the wish to return to Belarus. And they all are back, though in a dif­fer­ent way.»

You were detained by the Russ­ian Fed­er­al Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice (FSB), but was it done only with­in the Belaru­sian crim­i­nal case?

«FSB was inter­est­ed about me and, as far as I under­stood, about some oth­er peo­ple. For exam­ple, Andrey Kim (activist, late­ly has run trans­la­tion and screen­ing of pop­u­lar movies in the Belaru­sian lan­guage – note). It looks like there has been an order to coun­ter­act to those who are active in the infor­ma­tion­al sphere. I was on the inter­na­tion­al want­ed list, but in Rus­sia there was also an attempt to get more tes­ti­mo­ny and start one more case there. I played by telling that every­thing was not mine and I was a wrong man. They offered to con­fess and get 2–3 years sus­pend­ed sen­tence in Rus­sia, I was threat­ened that I would get five years in Belarus.»

What impres­sions do you have about the pen­i­ten­tiary sys­tem in Belarus?

«The sys­tem is very poor, it lacks mon­ey. One should pay atten­tion more to the staff, as some of them are worth being impris­oned for pow­er abuse. It is also impor­tant to improve med­ical aid. When a per­son feels unwell, he will have large prob­lems. In Zhodz­i­na, you can wait for a month or two to get to the den­tist with a toothache. There is aspirin and absorbent car­bon for all dis­eases. It is hor­ri­ble when a per­son dies in prison, but, actu­al­ly, he could have been saved.

I wasn’t beat­en and haven’t seen or heard about any­thing of the kind. As for tor­tures, I think they are pos­si­ble only with a direct order from above. But the con­fine­ment con­di­tions are close to what can be called tor­tures. For instance, peo­ple live for months with­out oxy­gen. Imag­ine, there are 10–15 peo­ple in the cell, and they all smoke. Peo­ple sim­ply live in the smoke. With time, dif­fer­ent dis­eases devel­op.

I have more ques­tions regard­ing inad­e­quate actions of secu­ri­ty forces dur­ing deten­tions – there are real­ly very many injured peo­ple, they get to inten­sive care.

The sta­tus of polit­i­cal pris­on­er did not influ­ence any­thing dur­ing the impris­on­ment. Maybe even the guards were unaware of it. But the sta­tus must have influ­enced the court deci­sion and people’s sup­port.»

Could you tell about moods that detainees have dur­ing inves­ti­ga­tion?

«Some­body is strong psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly and behave nor­mal, oth­ers get depressed. I saw in Rus­sia a man who tried to com­mit sui­cide at night by cut­ting veins.»

Do Belaru­sian and Russ­ian deten­tion cen­ters dif­fer?

«Food in Belaru­sian pris­ons is bet­ter. The Depart­ment of Exe­cu­tion of Court Sen­tences real­ly needs big­ger bud­gets, because there are many peo­ple. Here, it is eas­i­er to get to prison rather than to find a job.  But in some pris­ons in Rus­sia one can have DVD-play­ers, fridges, TV-sets. We have stricter order in this regard.»

Why do you stay aside from the Belaru­sian oppo­si­tion?

«The word “oppo­si­tion” has changed here for years and does not illus­trate its ini­tial mean­ing.  I do not keep aside because I have nev­er been linked to polit­i­cal par­ties or struc­tures.  I am an ordi­nary man. Nobody paid me, unfor­tu­nate­ly, no Wash­ing­ton, no the EU. I see wrong­ness in their way of think­ing, irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Peo­ple crit­i­cize accord­ing to the 20-year old scheme, they have been say­ing the same for years. A man who wants to get pow­er will act more exten­sive­ly. In Zhodz­i­na, I read some debates con­cern­ing the access of two oppo­si­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tives to par­lia­ment. Will it influ­ence the author­i­ties? Or the ques­tion of pow­er is still relat­ed to nation­al con­scious­ness and secu­ri­ty. Of course, it is bet­ter to tread the same path “We are get­ting ready for the next elec­tions”. And 25 years like this. I wish them more cre­ativ­i­ty.»

The sto­ry has added you some good social cap­i­tal, you are rec­og­niz­able and author­i­ta­tive. What are you going to do with this?

 «I am reflect­ing on it.  But again I say I am an ordi­nary man, as well as the peo­ple who vis­it­ed my web­site. Per­haps, I would want to make some super project, but I don’t have respec­tive resources.»

And what about work, sphere of activ­i­ties?

«Now I don’t have much choice, I will look for a job relat­ed to mass media, infor­ma­tion, jour­nal­ism.»

Has Belarus changed for this time?

«It has, espe­cial­ly judg­ing by TV. Now there is less pro­pa­gan­da and infor­ma­tion­al trash. There is more nation­al stuff – the Belaru­sian lan­guage, vyshy­van­ki. I would not tell that the Belaru­sian TV has become more truth­ful, but there is no tough pro­pa­gan­da that would offend the ear.»

How dif­fi­cult is it for rel­a­tives to sup­port one detained mate­ri­al­ly?

«I did not ask the exact sums; includ­ing the parcels, the lawyers, it makes around an aver­age salary a month. But it can be even much more, up to sev­er­al thou­sand dol­lars for lawyers’ ser­vice only.»

Eduard Palchys was found guilty of incit­ing racial, nation­al, reli­gious, or oth­er hatred accord­ing to art. 130, part 1 of the Crim­i­nal Code, and also of pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of pornog­ra­phy mate­ri­als (art. 343 of the Crim­i­nal Code).

Before the sen­tence comes into legal force, Eduard Palchys stays under trav­el ban.

Belaru­sian human rights defend­ers con­sid­er him a polit­i­cal pris­on­er and his case polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed.