TUT.BY journalist Lyubou Kaspyarovich was released on Saturday, 29 May. According to her colleagues, the girl spent 15 days in the remand prison on Akrestsin Street but still was in a good mood.
The journalist learned about what happened to the portal TUT.BY only a week later from her cellmates:
“I was told in the evening of May 24. They told me: that’s it, everything was closed, everyone was seized. “What, who, with whom?” was spinning in my head. I thought I would go crazy with these thoughts. Night and day I agonized, then I began to come to my senses a little,” says Lyubou.
According to the journalist, detainees kept on Akrestsina are still held in overcrowded cells. “Tonight was interesting. By nightfall, there were 17 of us in an eight-bed cell. The newcomers who came in were horrified, but, in principle, it was not so scary and horrible,” recalls the journalist.
Lyubou Kaspyarovich also said that she did not manage to get a decent night’s sleep these days: “You sleep on the floor. It’s cold. Plus, the inmates in the so-called political cameras are woken up at two and four in the morning. They call your name; you have to get up or answer.”
She and her cellmates were not given bed linen. She wasn’t taken to the shower either.
“There was bed linen in the cell across the hall. Through the feeder, you could see slippers and blankets. We had bare beds. It was more comfortable to sleep on the floor than on them. Walks were three or four thousand steps around the cell until you got tired of counting. Showers are wet wipes and a bottle of water,” says Lyubou.
The journalist was not given her parcels until she was released from the TDF. So all that the girl had were the things she was detained in. My colleagues managed to give me a parcel with various hygiene products through the police department, but they did not let me through when I entered the TDF. Only a pack of masks was handed over.
On the plus side, Lyubou said many good people were with her in the cell: “I have never experienced such care.”
Regarding the detention center staff, the girl notes that there were times when they violated the comfort zone. “You come out hands behind your back, roll-call. Then, in the morning, you pour out water with chlorine or without chlorine. It felt like there were different smells. Then, you clean it all up. In general, I was not in that position, so for me, it was unusual,” recalls Lyubou.
Her relatives and colleagues were waiting for her when she left the detention center.
