Freedom icon Maria Kalesnikava has been isolated for 600 days and now weighs 45 kilos

Maria Kalesnikava is not dead yet. It’s as if her captors have an even more infamous plan: to make her cease to exist gradually. Pulling her out of the present for everyone but herself, bite by bite. Reduced to an increasingly distant memory, a chain dog of oblivion. Day by day. Step by step.

“They are trying to convince her that everyone has forgotten her”, says Tatsjana Khomitj, who is the sister of Maria Kalesnikava and thus one of the biggest Belarusian freedom icons.

Autumn shows itself from its most beautiful side as we talk over the phone between Copenhagen and somewhere in Europe. But otherwise it’s a painful conversation.

It is about a death struggle on the brink of oblivion. And the fight is already so far advanced that before the further rollout it may be appropriate to rehearse who Maria Kalesnikava is.