The sombre collection of prison artefacts of the Skaryna Library was recently augmented with a drawing and touching letters received by Volha Sieviaryniec from her political prisoner husband. They became part of The Unbroken exhibition.
Pavał Sieviaryniec has been repeatedly arrested and sentenced to fines, penal colony, and imprisonment for publicly defending the right of the Belarusian people to a democratic political system. He has devoted 25 years – most of his life – to politics. Eight of them he has spent in prison. He has founded the Belarusian Christian Democratic Party and has written 12 books.
In June 2020, Pavał was detained after an election picket on Minsk’s Kamaroŭka market. After 75 days in detention, he was charged with a criminal offence (inciting riots) and in 2021 was sentenced to seven years in prison at a non-public trial. He has been recognised as a political prisoner by international human rights organisations.
Pavał Sieviaryniec’s drawing of the High Town in Minsk which he made in 2021 while spending a seven-year term in prison. It features two cathedral churches – the Roman catholic and Orthodox ones.