Hi!
My name is Denis. I am an orphan, and from close relatives I have only a girlfriend and two children. We are waiting for a third child.
On October 4, 2020 I was detained during the “march for the release of political prisoners”. I was beaten and demanded my phone password. A rib was broken.
The next day, after I was taken to the temporary detention center, I was given 13 days under the popular article of the Code of Administrative Offences 23.34 (violation of the order of organizing or holding mass events). And then they opened a criminal case under Article 342 of the Criminal Code (organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them).
I served 6 months in the pre-trial detention center. Then there was a trial, after which I was sentenced to one and a half years in prison.
On December 27, 2021, I was released and for some time I thought to stay in Belarus. But then the war in Ukraine started, and I started to receive calls from the police department and was insistently invited for a “conversation”, because I was supposedly a witness in an unnamed “very important” case.
I realized that it was dangerous to stay in Minsk, so I left for Lithuania. Here I worked in a restaurant for about a year, but the salary I was paid was small, and it was not enough to feed my family.
Now I am looking for a new job. To get by, I work part-time at a construction site. We live in a hostel. We need to rent an apartment because we are preparing for the birth of a child. We also need funds to get us through this difficult and important period.
How much is needed?
€2500
€1500 — rent and utilities + security deposit
€300 — warm clothes for the children
€300 — day care fees
€200 — things for a newborn baby
€200 — groceries and household items