21/09/30 12:00:45.68 GvuBtalq.net
A year ago, Belarusian security forces tried to get rid of Maria Kolesnikova. But the opposition activist refused to leave the country, ripping up her passport at the border and climbing out of the car window.
"This whole year, they've been trying to make me regret what I did," she told the BBC in her first interview since she was convicted last month of plotting to seize power.
"I've been in hot and then cold cells, without air or light, without people. A whole year with nothing."
Ms Kolesnikova is one of the most prominent among hundreds of political prisoners who were seized after mass protests swept Belarus over the discredited election victory of President Alexander Lukashenko in 2020.
Many were brutally beaten while some have been forced into exile, as Mr Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, tried to crush all dissent.
"I knew if they didn't kill me, they'd put me in prison for sure," Ms Kolesnikova told me of the moment she resisted deportation, in written responses to questions passed on via her family. "Those who serve this system had left me in no doubt of that.
"But I don't regret anything, and I'd do the same again."