After four years in detention for helping Belarusians, I was able to leave the country and take my family abroad, and now we need your support.
My name is Sergei*, and as long as I can remember, I have never been “outside politics.” The feeling that something was fundamentally wrong with Belarus came to me long before 2020. When the Belarusian language began to disappear from the public space, when television repeated every day that “everything is fine here, others have it worse, and as long as there is no war,” and 2020 became the apogee of all this state-sponsored lies. My wife and I constantly went out to protests in Minsk; we probably did not miss a single major march. We kept going until winter, for as long as it was possible at all. This is not about heroism, but about the feeling that there was no other choice. The election was stolen, violence became the norm, and staying silent meant agreeing.
When mass arrests and the first criminal cases began, it became clear that for many people the issue was no longer freedom of speech, but physical safety. At some point, several acquaintances needed to be urgently rescued after the remand centre. The understanding came that the best option was to take them to a safe country. We looked for routes and helped people get from point A to point B. The best thing I heard back after making a call was: “The guys are all right.” Then other people appeared who needed extraction. This went on for some time, and although I understood that I was taking a risk, it seemed then that there was no other way.
I was arrested. They put pressure on me, intimidated me, promised that “I would never get out” and that I would “never see my family again.” I did not believe it – and, strangely enough, I turned out to be right. In the end, I spent a long four years in prison.
After my release, I remained in Belarus for some time. It was constant control, restrictions, visits from law enforcers, and the inability to work normally. Plus, the main thing: I have loved ones, and I understood that any careless action could hit them. When the moment became minimally safe, I left myself and took my family out.
Now we are in exile and are applying for international protection. This is a long process, and we have a long road ahead in a new country. Until we receive documents, my wife and I have no right to work officially. We need somewhere to live, something to eat, and to cover basic expenses.
Things are hard for us now, but we would not ask for help if we could cope on our own. To get through this period of unemployment, not end up on the street, and finally begin a calm, free life, I am really counting on your solidarity – just like in 2020, when we did not think about danger and simply helped each other as best we could.
*This is an anonymous fundraising campaign. For security reasons, we have changed the hero’s name and some details of the story. The image was generated using AI.
Fundraising goal
€3000
€1400 – housing rent and utility costs
€800 – food and basic necessities
€800 – payment for a lawyer’s services for filing documents