Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 22 – Soviet political prisoners in Stalin’s time were often sent to work in uranium mines and other industries where their lives were put at even greater risk than those faced by prisoners in regular camps. Tragically, Alyaksandr Lukashenka is continuing that horrific tradition.
According to Belarusian and international human rights activists, a minimum of 681 of the 2336 sentenced to serve time behind bars since 2020 have been sent to work in what people there refer to as “chemical” facilities (rfi.fr/ru/европа/20241022-правозащитники-с-2020-года-в-беларуси-по-политическим-мотивам-осуждены-более-шести-тысяч-человек).
“Such punishments,” RFI Russian reports, “began to be called ‘chemistry’ in Soviet times when citizens were dispatched to hazardous production facilities in the chemical industry.” Today, Belarusian jailors house such people in barracks-type institutions and then transport them to chemical plants to work.
No data is available on how many Belarusian politicals may have lost their lives or at least their health as a result of this practice, but the international community should do whatever it can to end this practice in Belarus – and indeed in any other part of the former Soviet space where such Stalinist practices live on or are being revived.
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