When I was 19 I had a happy life with my family and friends. I was the only student employed by the second largest independent media company in Belarus. I wrote about international politics and I was confident: I would always work in Belarus and provide people with quality information. I had a wonderful young life ahead of me that I wanted to dedicate to my country.
Today I am 23 years old. Thanks to the Belarusian and Russian dictators, I changed two countries of permanent residence, endured two forced emigrations, threats from the security authorities and the outbreak of war, and I have not been able to communicate with many of my friends and colleagues for a long time – they are behind bars.
In the summer of 2021, a colleague from my editorial team received a Search by the KGB carried out. That same day I was given to understand that I would be next in line. At that time, the security forces took full retaliation against independent journalists, criminally prosecuting them and putting them behind bars.
For example, a few months earlier, in May, they destroyed the country’s largest independent media company, TUT.by, arrested 15 of its employees and instituted criminal proceedings against them. The evening before my departure, the security forces arrested Yegor Martinovich, the editor-in-chief of another independent media outlet, Nasha Niva, and sentenced him to 2.5 years in prison.
I suddenly had to leave my old life behind me: I fled the country with a single backpack via a secret route, bypassing the official border posts. As the minibus took me away from my beloved city, I tried to remember my last night in my beloved country.
The next morning I was in Russia. After a grueling FSB customs check, lack of sleep and two flights, I finally found myself in Ukraine, the country that would become my second home for the next eight months.
Here I left my previous media company and joined a team of exiled journalists who wanted to continue the TUT.by cause. Although today it is dangerous to be a political journalist due to the pressure of the state organs, I realized that I could not remain silent about the events in Belarus: I became a political observer and started writing about the repressions in my country.
On February 24, 2022, my life changed dramatically again
By the winter of 2022, I was finally able to live in peace in Kiev, wake up without fear of arrest and go about my work in peace. But on February 24, my life changed dramatically again. At four in the morning I was woken up by a call from my friend yelling “War!” A minute later there was an explosion outside my window and the car alarms wailed loudly.
At that point, I couldn’t believe that the experts’ worst predictions had actually come true: Putin had launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Even more painful was the realization that the rockets aimed at Ukrainian soil were fired from my home country.
I don’t remember the next three days exactly, but a flashback stuck in my mind. It was the second time I had to leave the country I had considered home with just a backpack – just like in 2020.
What’s wrong with the world when two dictators rule my life?
And the reason remained the same – authoritarianism in Belarus and Russia. In 2020, Putin had already supported Lukashenko, who, with the help of violence and security forces, managed to keep power in the country by imprisoning his opponents and throwing them out of the country. On the morning of February 24th, as my messengers burst with messages, I reflected on what is wrong with the world when two dictators rule my life and make me flee the country I love once again.
The third country of my stay was Germany. Most of the time, people here don’t know enough about what’s going on in my country. If they ask me to explain what I’m doing here and why I can’t come back, I just open the news feed and read out the latest verdicts for journalists.
One of the loudest cases happened on March 17, the day when the editor-in-chief Marina Zolotova and the director of TUT.by Liudmila Chekina were sentenced to 12 years in prison. Despite this persecution by the authorities, many journalists continue to work abroad, despite being forced to relocate, threatened by security forces and pressured by their families.
