An Israeli woman who was arrested in Minsk, Belarus, for affixing ribbons in the colors of the Ukrainian flag to her car and imprisoned for 28 days before being deported to Lithuania is now free to tell her story.
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Irina Kapilova, 49, is a marketing manager who was living in Minsk. On the second day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, she stuck blue and yellow colored ribbons to her car in a demonstration of solidarity with Ukraine. This is not a violation of any Belarusian law, and Kapilova says that other drivers responded favorably when they spotted the blue and yellow stripes.
While most of the Belarusian public opposes Russia's actions in Ukraine, the government of Belarusian President Viktor Lukashenko has allowed Russia to use its territory for its war.
In early May, Kapilova was suddenly summoned to the police station. She was informed that there was a suspicion that she was driving a stolen vehicle.
"I didn't do anything illegal, so I thought they'd warn me, or at the most give me fine," she told Israel Hayom.
"But the detective told me, without batting an eyelash, that today a yellow and blue ribbon was like a red and white [anti-government] ribbon in 2020. Because there is no such crime [on the books], he put together a report about a disturbance, totally false, and send me to a cold cell in the station," Kapilova recounted.
The next day, Kapilova's case was tried.
"In an online hearing a police officer appeared who had supposedly witnessed the event. He was sitting there reading off details about my 'disturbance' in the detective's office. I'd never seen him before," she said.
The judge sentenced Kapilova to 15 days in prison in the notorious Okrestina Street Detention Center, where political activists are detained.
"There were 18 women in an eight square meter (86 square foot) cell, without sheets and without enough beds. Every night we'd play human Tetris – how to arrange the room so we could sleep without having to sit up. I, for example, slept in the corner near the toilet – just a hole that was only separated from the rest of the cell by a shoulder-high wall," she said.
Kapilova said she and her fellow prisoners weren't given enough basic supplies for personal hygiene and said that the prison brought in homeless women covered in lice to increase their suffering.
At the end of her 15-day detention, Kapilova received her personal belongings and was brought to the prison exit, where two police officers were waiting for her, another report in their hands.
"It was 7 p.m. and the report was already written, saying I created a disturbance at 9:30 p.m. somewhere else in Minsk. I told them there was no way I'd sign it, but they brought me to the police station anyway and held me for three days without a trial, because even the judge demanded that they alter the report. Then they changed it and sent me back to Okrestina."
Kapilova said that while all this was going on, her lawyer, her partner, and her family members were in contact with the Israeli Embassy in Minsk in attempt to help her.
"They always told them to call back later, or promised to call them back, but actually I don't know what was done, if anything," she said. "The fact is, no one visited me, even though there were other foreign citizens in the prison and representatives of their countries visited them."
Kapilova said that four days before she was released, she was moved to a more comfortable cell: "That might be thanks to the embassy. I don't know."
Kapilova is now living in Lithuania, because the day she was released from prison, she was ordered to leave Belarus and not return for five years. This deportation order is illegal.
"I didn't receive any help, and it's really disappointing," she said. "It was unreasonable to expect they [the Israeli Embassy] would get me out, but they could have at least taken care of basic needs like giving me a toothbrush or some underwear."
The Foreign Ministry called Kapilova's allegations "baseless."
"The lady's family and lawyer did not reach out to the embassy, it was the Israeli Embassy in Belarus that contacted the lawyer and Kapilova's daughter after learning about her arrest. The embassy reached out to the Belarusian authorities about the Israeli citizen, and apparently after that outreach she was released and asked to leave the country. It's very unfortunately that a citizen is making baseless claims even though she received the necessary help from the consulate, which even helped her get out," the ministry said.
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