Ilya Dubsky doused his arm in acid and then, using scissors, began cutting away the skin on his arm where a tattoo of a historical emblem of Belarus was emblazoned.
A prison guard looked on as he removed from his arm what he had been told would identify him as a traitor: "Remove it however you want, even if it's with a brick...or you'll never get out."
Dubsky -- who was first detained while attending protest rallies against Belarus's authoritarian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko in 2020 and subsequently sentenced to five years in prison for social media posts -- was one of 52 prisoners released in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions on the Belarusian state-owned airline Belavia.
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Belarus Service in Lithuania where he and all but one of the others were released, the 28-year-old recounted receiving beatings, having cigarette butts held to his face, and being incarcerated in freezing, overcrowded punishment cells.
“I burned the nerve endings so that it wouldn’t hurt so much,” Dubsky said recounting how he prepared before using nail scissors cut away the skin where his tattoo was.
“My whole hand was covered in blood. Someone was sitting nearby, smoking. He looked at me…indifferently," he added.
Later, the arm got infected, so he went to the prison clinic.
“The doctors were in shock. They bandaged my wound and treated it with antiseptic,” Dubsky said of his gruesome ordeal.
Belarus has made headlines in recent weeks with a flurry of US-negotiated releases of political prisoners. But while Minsk basks in the narrative of warming relations with Washington, dark questions have been raised by accounts of torture and mistreatment -- and the prompt rearrest of a veteran dissident.
Mikalay Statkevich was released from prison on September 11 as part of the political agreement but unlike the others, the 69-year-old former presidential candidate refused deportation. Pictures showed him stranded in a no-man's land between the borders of Lithuania and Belarus. Then he went missing.
On September 17, Statkevich’s wife Maryna Adamovich visited a prison in Hlybokaye, eastern Belarus, where it was thought he might be being held. Prison authorities said they would respond to her inquiries within 15 days.
The same day, Lukashenko confirmed that Statkevich had been arrested but said nothing of his whereabouts.
Diplomatic engagement by Washington, including at least one phone call between Lukashenko and US President Donald Trump, has led to a series of prisoner releases this year.
It began in January, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that American citizen Anastasia Nuhfer was released. Days later, RFE/RL journalist Andrey Kuznechyk and two others were freed.
More releases followed, notably that of prominent opposition leader Syarhei Tsikhanouski with 14 others in June. But exiled Belarusian human rights group Vyasna (Spring) reported that 29 others were newly jailed that same month.
Statkevich’s rearrest fits with this pattern of headline-grabbing releases coupled with continued political repression in Belarus.
Meanwhile, Dubsky’s story fits with that of others who have given graphic accounts of what they endured in Lukashenko’s prisons.
'Inhuman Conditions'
"There are no words to describe what's happening in there," one former prisoner, Henadz Fyadynich, told reporters after his release on September 12.
“If other people saw what this penal colony was like, they would think they were in the Middle Ages. I woke up many times in the middle of the night, hearing grown men literally howling," he said.
Tsikhanouski recalled spending nearly three years in total isolation. Journalist Ihar Karnei, who worked with RFE/RL for over 20 years, spoke of “inhuman conditions” after his release in June.
Dubsky told RFE/RL that he slit his wrists and went on hunger strike while he was being held in pretrial detention.
The European Parliament's Delegation for relations with Belarus has issued a statement calling Statkevich’s current situation an “enforced disappearance” and demanding his safety and freedom.
While Statkevich refused deportation, and is now missing presumed jailed, Dubsky said he was happy to be in Lithuania because he knew the security forces would come for him again if he remained.
"I really want everyone [else] to be released," he added.
According to Vyasna, there are currently 1,182 political prisoners in Belarus.
