Survivor Exposes Brutal Solitary Confinement and Medical Abuse in Prison

I was punished six times in a row with six-month stints in solitary confinement—under the special regime, that's the maximum term allowed. The cell measured just one by three meters, with "exercise" limited to half an hour a day in a slightly larger space: a nearly soundproof metal box under a metal roof, lit by artificial light even in daylight.

Years without so much as a glimpse of the sky—even through bars—weighs on you.

On top of that, once or twice a month, I was thrown into the punishment cell, where I spent nearly a year in total. No one else had ever been treated like that there. Seasoned inmates told me they were trying to "break me—make it look like natural causes."

The complete lack of news about my loved ones on the outside crushed me, too—especially since Marina was seriously, dangerously ill at the time.

At one point, one of the facility's administrators even sent me a "humane" offer through another inmate: I could request a transfer to a closed prison, where conditions were far less harsh. I flatly refused. In places like that, any sign of weakness only invites more pressure.

I resisted their plans and fought to hold on to myself. I paced endlessly in that cell, did whatever physical exercises I could, read as much philosophy and social psychology as I could get from the library—before they stopped issuing books—and tried to study English until they confiscated my textbooks. In the punishment cell, I worked out a long text exploring the origins of human morality, how people choose their behavioral models, and the moral choices individuals face in critical situations.

Later, I even drafted it on paper, but it vanished into the KGB's archives during an attempt to deport me illegally. Now I'll have to find the time to reconstruct it—I hate leaving things unfinished.

All things considered, I stayed in decent shape for the conditions—and for surviving three bouts of COVID.

At the very least, I had enough strength left for one final push. But when I refused deportation, I knew full well they wouldn't just let me walk free. I braced for the worst.

As it turned out, though, the end came simply. After my second COVID infection in the Homiel pretrial detention center, doctors prescribed me specific medications. Marina sent them to the colony, with frequent delays, but they usually arrived, and I received them. For three years, those medical parcels were our only means of communication. When I got one, I knew Marina was still alive. And by tracking the parcel codes, she knew the same when they were picked up from the post office.

But since last September, my whereabouts were kept secret. Marina had no idea where I was; the colony told her I wasn't there, and her parcels stopped arriving.

They told me they'd issue their own "equivalents." For example, they replaced Xarelto—a blood-thinning medication—to prevent clots—with aspirin.

Later, in the prison hospitals, the doctors would all laugh—at me, for some reason—over that substitution. They said such a replacement was unacceptable for post-COVID complications and that it was what had triggered my stroke.

So I have every reason to believe this stroke was deliberately and artificially induced.

But the doctors in the prison hospitals—God bless them—did everything they could to minimize its consequences. It didn't impair any of my physical functions except my speech.

Now I feel well—my blood pressure is a steady 120/80, my usual. I've started exercising again. I regularly work online with a speech therapist, Julia, a Belarusian living in the U.S., to whom I'm deeply grateful for finding the time and energy to help me after her long workdays. My speech is gradually improving, but it will take more time.

True, the authorities occasionally raise my stress levels—apparently to speed up my post-stroke recovery.

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Nikolai Statkevich