These days, the Governing Body of the International Labour Office (ILO) holds its meeting in Geneva. The meeting participants can see a place card there with the name of Aliaksandr Yarashuk, President of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP), a member of the ILO GB, and a political prisoner today.
Thus, the International Labour Organization (ILO) reminds the international community of repressions against union leaders and activists in Belarus: currently, 29 of them are serving their term in prisons.
“Salidarnast” continues the cycle of publications telling the stories of some of these prisoners.
Aliaksandr Yarashuk was arrested in April 2022, charged under Article 342 of the Criminal Code (CC) (organizing and preparing actins that constitute grave violations of public order, or taking an active part therein) and Article 361 (calls for actions aimed at causing damage to the national security of the Republic of Belarus), and sentenced to 4 years behind bars.
In June 2024, Yarashuk, while still in prison, was re-elected as a member of the ILO Governing Body. At the time, some of the GB delegates were wearing T-shirts with his picture and the slogan “Free Trade Union Activists”. The International Labour Organization has put forward the same demand, yet the situation remains unchanged to date.
“He was repeatedly warned that independent unions will become, sooner or later, a target for the authorities’ repressions and that the whole leadership team and union activists will be detained”, told us a colleague of Yarashuk who wished to stay anonymous. “However, Aliaksandr Ilyich had a firm civic position and was a man of principle; he was not going to run and hide, he would not abandon his people as he had an organization he was responsible for. He could not see himself living comfortably in a safe place while his fellow unionists had already been arrested or could be arrested at any moment.”
Siarhei Antusevich, Aliaksandr Yarashuk’s deputy, was detained on the same day.
“Aliaksandr Ilyich and I were in our office when it happened. Then, they separated us and took us to the KGB pre-trial detention facility”, said Siarhei Antusevich in his interview to “Salidarnast”. “Ten days later, we met again in a police van that was transferring us to the Volodarka pre-trial detention hub. At the time, we could only exchange a couple of words because there were always guards hovering nearby, making sure that we did not talk and exchange any information.
“I could see that he was calm and composed, although he did realize, for instance, that he was facing a longer prison term than I did. People who shared the same cell with Aliaksandr Ilyich said that he remained active even in those circumstances, every day doing morning exercises to keep himself on form. I hope he is still doing them.”
In the summer and autumn of 2020, independent unions turned out to be the main participants of the protest movement; at the time, Aliaksandr Yarashuk was calling workers to go on strike in their workplaces and set up and join a National Strike Committee.
However, the repressions led to all independent trade unions being dissolved and many activists arrested. In April 2023, the Ministry of Interior put the political prisoner Aliaksandr Yarashuk on the “extremists list”.
Siarhei Antusevich says that Aliaksandr Yarashuk was a man of a rather exacting character, then again, one cannot be a leader, if their nature lacks complexity:
“During the ten years that we worked together we had no serious disagreements, much less conflicts. I learnt so much from him, and he, as I could see, was learning something from me. We were learning our lessons together and we tried to work in a way that would yield maximum results in that very complicated situation we faced in the country. When the Government chose to ignore all demands and suggestions coming from independent unions.
Aliaksandr Ilyich came to work in the unions at a mature age and he realized how important it was for us to integrate into the international labour movement. For instance, with him as the leader we became affiliated to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).
A colleague of Yarashuk who prefers to remain unnamed in the current circumstances has told us that, currently, the main communication channel with the political prisoner who is doing his time in the Mogilev prison is written letters: “Not all of them reach him, of course, and he himself cannot write quite freely: the prison censorship is strict. Actually, he can only write about some neutral things and the state of his health. Understandably, a man of 73 will have some conditions. Nevertheless, Aliaksandr Ilyich tries to stay in high spirits. In any case, there are no complaints coming from him, although he probably just does not want to write about his health issues.
“Eighteen months ago he, as a “deliberate offender”, was transferred from a penal colony to a prison where the detention conditions are harsher. While in the colony, he was allowed parcels and visits, now it’s a totally different story: just letters and a 10-minute phone call to his family once a month.”
Siarhei Antusevich believes that they may have provoked Aliaksandr Yarashuk to commit some minor offence so they could classify him as a “deliberate house rules offender”, thus bringing forward his transfer from the penal colony in Shklov to the prison in Mogilev:
“Political prisoners enjoy special attention and I have no doubts that it all had been pre-arranged. I faced similar things when in prison. You would be accosted by somebody showing sincere interest in your situation, starting a conversation, asking you how you were, and later on it would turn out be a banal provocation with the guy fishing for a piece of information that they could later turn inside out and rat on you to the chief warden.”
After the massive repressions and arrests of union leaders and activists, the Government of Belarus was invited to receive a mission of the International Labour Organization in Minsk and allow it to visit prisons in order to assess the situation of political prisoners. However, the proposal was rejected along with the appointment of a special representative for Belarus to monitor further developments.
So, establishing political prisoners’ state of health and the conditions they face in their penitentiaries is impossible. We only know that the health of many of them is a cause for concern. In the course of the latest amnesties in the country, only two union activists have been released for humanitarian reasons: Vasily Beresneu who has a grave condition and Aleksei Alekseichik who had worked for over 20 years as a transplant surgeon at the National Research and Practice Centre for Pediatric Oncology where he had a reputation of one of the best experts with a multitude of bone marrow transplant operations to his credit.
On April 19, 2025, the campaign “Trade Unionism is not Extremism!” will run a Day of Action for Union Rights and Democracy in Belarus demanding the release of imprisoned Belarusian union leaders.
The campaign has been launched to focus the international community’s attention on the situation of workers’ rights in Belarus. The country faces police terror, torture, and persecution of all opponents to Lukashenka’s dictatorial regime, including trade union activists.
The campaign calls for the release of union and political prisoners, a stop to repressions against union activists, and the restoration of guarantees for legal operation of independent trade unions.
The campaign has been organized by the “Salidarnast” Association and the BKDP who provide support to union activists and the event will mark an anniversary of the pogroms perpetrated by Lukashenka’s regime against independent trade unions in 2022.
Aliaksandr Yarashuk is among those whom the “Salidarnst” Association and the BKDP along with the whole international labour movement strive to see released.
“Aliaksandr Ilyich is a man of a fascinating biography”, says Siarhei Antusevich. “He first became a leader back there in the Soviet times: his last governmental position was the First Deputy Head of the Minsk Regional Administration.
“I remember him at that time and later on when he started having disagreements with we all know who. Then he became active in the trade union movement and he would tell now and then that destiny had made him a great gift of an opportunity to prove his mettle in an independent trade union organization where there was a real chance to defend people’s rights and no need for hypocrisy.”
A colleague of Yarashuk who wished to remain anonymous believes that “Aliaksandr Ilyich is a patriot of Belarus who was convinced that the position he had allowed him to make his contribution to the development of his country as a democratic state, however distant its democratic future might be. This is his conviction, his position in life which sustained him during the darkest times. I hope it still sustains him now, when he is in prison.”
Victoria Leontieva
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