Good afternoon. My name is Alesya Potapenko. I am from Minsk (Novaya Borovaya District). I came to Lithuania in December of last year. Since August 2020, my husband, Timofey Potapenko, started to receive summonses for hanging a white-red-white flag on the loggia of his apartment. He did not show up for these summonses. Starting in September, police officers began informing us by phone and threatening us that if I did not take down the flag, my husband would be subjected to administrative penalties, up to and including arrest. After that, several more summonses came.
On 9.12.2020 officers of the Main Directorate of Internal Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus tried to break into our apartment. They explained that my husband and I were being investigated under Article 179 and Article 369 of the Criminal Code. The sanction of this article is up to 3 years of imprisonment. They also explained that they could deprive us of our parental rights and take our children to an orphanage. We didn't wait until we were detained and decided to leave the country.
Employees from the Interior Ministry's Internal Security Directorate, who came to the house, explained that our neighbor, Deputy Head of the Interior Ministry of the Republic of Belarus Roman Valerievich Romanchuk, a police colonel, wrote a statement about me and my husband for insulting and spreading information about our private life (in the house chat).
Now we live in Klaipeda with our two children. I graduated from Belarusian State Technical University in Minsk (accounting, analysis and audit), but I did not work by profession; I worked in the airline Belavia (flight attendant). Consequently, in order to somehow realize myself in another country I entered the Lithuanian Maritime Academy in IT. But due to the fact that I was late in applying I could not get a grant, although I have a good 11th grade diploma in high school #75. Late I applied for training, as I did not know if I could go to training. My youngest child is 2 and my oldest is 10.
I was in the process of placing them in kindergarten and school respectively. And at the time, it wasn't certain that my youngest child would go to kindergarten. As soon as I put him in kindergarten, I applied for training, but I could not apply for a grant (for free tuition) because of the deadline.
In Minsk, we pay the loan for the apartment, I was also required to pay back the allowance, which I was paid for children in Minsk.
I would be grateful for your help.
How much is needed?
3000 € — help with tuition fees in the CMA.