The flautist who became a pied piper for Belarus revolt
The young face of dissent reveals how rather than be exiled, she stuck to her values and ended up in jail
One afternoon in early September, Maria Kolesnikova was grabbed off the street by the Belarusian KGB and taken to the border to be expelled.
The professional musician-turned-protest leader, with her trademark red lipstick and cropped bleached hair, was put in a car with two of her associates. They were told to drive to Ukraine and never come back.
While the two men sat in the front terrified, Ms Kolesnikova, who played flute in the National Academic Concert Orchestra of the Republic of Belarus and became the face of Belarusian protests last summer, took out her passport, ripped it up and threw the pieces in the faces of KGB officers standing nearby.
Moments later, she was out of the car and as dawn broke she walked across no-man’s land back into Belarus. She was immediately arrested and has not been seen in public since.
In her first interview with an English-language media outlet from jail, she told The Daily Telegraph earlier this week that she has “absolutely no regrets” about choosing certain imprisonment over exile.
“When so many people are in jail, I couldn’t just leave them, betray my convictions and flee against my own promises,” Ms Kolesnikova, whose pictures of herself making a heart shape with her hands to riot police became a symbol of the Belarusian protests, said in a written message.
“I physically could not resist and getting rid of the passport made my deportation impossible... it has foiled the plan of the intelligence services. It involved five different departments and 40 people in total.”
A musician with a successful career in Germany, Ms Kolesnikova, 38, emerged last summer as one of the leaders of the Belarusian uprising against Alexander Lukashenko, the country’s president of 26 years, whose dubious landslide win on Aug 9 triggered nationwide protests.
The government clamped down on the rallies with violence, leading to 10,000 arrests in three days and about 1,000 documented cases of torture in custody. It shook the nation to the core, fanning the flames of the protests even higher. After Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya – Mr Lukashenko’s main rival at the polls – was forced to leave Belarus the day after the
‘Getting rid of the passport made my deportation impossible... it has foiled the intelligence services’
elections, Ms Kolesnikova rejected the idea of going into exile. Before her arrest, she was threatened with murder if she did not comply.
She was initially charged with calling for “actions aimed at undermining Belarusian national security” but the prosecutors earlier this month pumped up the indictment to “conspiracy to seize state power in an unconstitutional manner” and “establishing and leading an extremist organisation”. She would be sent to prison for decades if convicted.
In the latest move to stifle the dissent, a Belarusian court has stripped Ms Kolesnikova’s attorney, Lyudmila Kazak, of her licence, leaving Ms Kolesnikova with no legal counsel.
In a message from prison, Ms Kolesnikova called on the international legal community to condemn the crackdown on the legal profession.
One of Ms Kolesnikova’s lawyers has
‘When so many people are in jail, I couldn’t just leave them, betray my convictions and flee’
‘I’m totally fine. I treat everything happening as a new difficult experience but not a tragedy’
been charged and is incarcerated in the same jail, another is under house arrest and a third has lost her licence, just like Ms Kazak.
“The regime is hoping that the country will soon run out of the lawyers,” Ms Kolesnikova said.
She added that she looks at her ordeal as anything but a punishment.
“I’m totally fine, emotionally and psychologically. I treat everything that’s happening as a new difficult experience but not a tragedy,” she wrote from a jail in Minsk, adding that the only thing that bothers her is cigarette smoke in her cell. Ms Kolesnikova boasted of a new routine – “daily exercises in the crispy, fresh air in the morning” – as something that makes her “always full of energy and optimism”.
She has recently received parcels with books in English and German that enable her to “always learn something new”.
Mr Lukashenko, who has become an international pariah for leading the crackdown on peaceful protesters, met with Vladimir Putin on Monday amid rumours that his embattled regime is seeking another £2 billion loan from Moscow. The Kremlin did not deny the reports. Ms Kolesnikova is now one of more than 250 people behind bars in Belarus for their political views, says the human rights group Viasna.
Since the onset of protests, authorities have charged 2,300 people who face persecution for their opposition. After the protests fizzled out in the winter, the regime in recent weeks has launched a new offensive on the opposition movement, worn out by neverending arrests and harassment, handing out jail terms to defendants ranging from journalists to a 16-yearold student.