Centre for Applied Human Rights
Katsiaryna Borsuk
Belarus, CAHR, Autumn 2014
I was born 27 years ago in a small village in the southeastern part of Belarus, near to the border with Ukraine. I was born one year after the accident that happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in 1986. Thus the whole region, to which my village belonged, became radioactively polluted and as a consequence I repeatedly faced discrimination on the grounds of my possible «radioactivity» or «transmissibility» from the side of those children or their parents who were from clean regions in Belarus. Such episodes have significantly influenced the formation of my views and personal characteristics.
I grew up at a time when Belarus became independent from the Soviet regime and harshly passed on a way of slow democratic transition as it was expected to do by progressive society, political and social movements. However, the transition has not happened until today when already 20 years of state sovereignty have flown by. Year on year the Belarusian authoritarian regime, ruled by the first and only President of Belarus, Mr. Alexsandr Lukashenko, is becoming more cruel and constantly repressive towards civil society, political opposition and those individuals who express their disagreements with or criticism towards the state, and who strive to protect their rights and freedoms.
This environment made me critically assess the behaviour models within Belarusian society, particularly their discriminatory attitudes towards racial, religious, sexual, and gender differences; their passive civil and political engagement; their devotion towards post-Soviet views and habits; and strong conservative and normative beliefs.
In 2010 I graduated from the Skarina Gomel University, holding a degree in Natural Science with a specialisation in geoecology. My engagement in civil and human rights activism started during my studies when I met some local eco-activists and joined their activities. Thus I was actively engaged in civil activism since 2007. In 2009 I did an internship with the Youth Human Rights Movement. YHRM is a community of people from different countries, for whom human rights and individual dignity are crucial values. The members of this community support each other in defending and promoting these values, sharing ideas, arranging joint actions and forming a new generation of civil activists.
GayBelarus is the only LGBT organisation that actively defends and promotes human rights for LGBT people in Belarus.
Over 2009 and 2010 I graduated from two human rights and antifascist schools convened by YHRM. From 2010 till 2012 I was working as an International Secretary of the National Youth Council. This is a union of youth organisations and initiatives that was banned in 2006 by the Belarusian Supreme Court for the promotion of democracy and youth civil participation. The National Youth Council runs its activities with an illegal status up to now. Over 2013 I was working as a volunteer with the Czech LGBT association «Proudem» and with the International Solidarity Movement of the Czech Republic towards Palestine.
In 2012 I became an activist in the LGBT Human Rights project «GayBelarus». GayBelarus was founded in 2008 and is the only LGBT organisation that actively defends and promotes human rights for LGBT people in Belarus, provides psychological and legal support, as well as convenient, consolidating spaces for LGBT people. It conducts monitoring and overviews of human rights violations against LGBT people in Belarus, carries out conferences, public round tables, exhibitions, workshops and trainings on the topics of non-discrimination, human rights, the life of the LGBT community, queer art and culture.
In recent years GayBelarus has hosted a number of conferences on LGBT matters and participated in the documentation and subsequent publication of human rights violations against the Belarusian LGBT community. Its activities have also included cooperation with the UN Special Rapporteur on Belarus and submitting alternative reports to the UN Periodic Review on the situation of LGBT people in Belarus. GayBelarus, in cooperation with a number of other human rights and discrimination combating organisations, are developing a draft proposal of antidiscrimination legislation for the state.
In 2012 I was a Secretary of the 7th LGBT Human Rights Forum «Minsk Pride 2012». The LGBT Human Rights Forum is conducted by GayBelarus already since 2009 and consists of a week of human rights and LGBTQ related events, with the Pride March at the end. In 2013 I was the Chairperson of the 8th Human Rights LGBT Forum "Minsk Pride 2013" when most of the events were banned by the state or some of them were even disturbed by law enforcement agents. Consequently in January 2014 the Criminal Department of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs summoned me and my colleague for questioning, where they threatened us with criminal persecution for unsanctioned activity on behalf of the illegal organisation (detention over more than two years in prison).
Currently I am a member of the Board of Directors of GayBelarus. I am also a consultant of organisational development for civil society organisations on behalf of Brussels (Belgium) and Prague (Czech Republic) based organisations: "Office for a Democratic Belarus" and "Civic Belarus".