Good news arrived this week: the coordinated work of our close-knit and professional team has received high recognition from the Belarusian human rights community. On December 10, International Human Rights Day, it was announced that the initiative “The Face of Prison Is Not Female” had been named the winner in the category “Human Rights Campaign/Initiative of the Year – 2025.”
Human rights work is always about addressing problems – or at least attempting to do so. In no country in the world are human rights defenders convenient or “pleasant” figures for those in power. However, in civilized countries, society – and, under its influence, the authorities – recognize the vital importance of human rights activities: namely, to protect the ordinary citizen from the pressure of a cumbersome, indifferent state apparatus that is often incapable of understanding the problems of a specific “little” person.
The regime of any authoritarian state, any dictatorship, perceives human rights work and civic activism in general as a mortal threat. As a result, thousands of citizens in our country pass through the grinding wheels of the state’s repressive machine, and this monstrous mechanism, this inhuman Moloch, continues to operate.
Today, we have mixed feelings. On the one hand, we are encouraged that our joint efforts have attracted such significant attention and received recognition and high appraisal. On the other hand, it is painful and bitter to realize that in our native country many prisoners continue to suffer – enduring abuse, deprived of adequate medical care, and denied basic human conditions and rights.
Today’s award reminds us that our work is only a single brick in the foundation of building a new Belarus – a country where the needs and interests of the citizen will be at the center of the authorities’ attention not as hollow, hypocritical slogans, but in reality. Yet without such bricks, there will be no building.
That is why we continue our work – together, honestly, consistently, calmly, and persistently.
#OurRightOurFight