Edward Lonsa
Member
There are not too much totally bolshevic closed communist states left in the world for now: North Korea completely closed. China, Cuba more open. Cambodia and Vietnam even more. And most open and the most quiet and peaceful seemed Belorus... till now.
But jewish communism (not what you are told in your West about it, but what it is in reality: prison, slavery, terror, everlasting torture and beatings that never end) that was not beaten to the end, will soon or later raise its head again. You have to kill communism to the end if you wish to sleep peacefully in your tomb when you die, because if you do not, you will never be able to peacefully reside - the screams of pain of your decendents will wake you up...
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Shortly pre-history. What happened was suddenly to everyone, after 26 years of communist dictator Lukashenko, they had a vote in which people chosen Svetlana Tihanovskaya (no party). Anyway they cheat the vote and put Lukashenko back in presidency against the will of the people. Tihanovskaya was sent away to Europe with all her family and people protested. But no one knew what could come to these people. They thought that USSR died, that they lived in 21 century with constitution and related. But when their "Omon" (special force in Belarus and Russia) came and told them: "It is no States here: you are not entitled", they learned the truth where they lived... but it was too late.
People were put to flour one on another as "carpet", so that all four were covered with them tightly and Omon was walking on them crashing their bones. Beaten and traumatized people were put one on another several "carpets" in bus, forced to sing Belarus hymn, for every move their heads were crashed by a rubber stick with iron inside. Omon called some of their own "dogs" meaning they were actually criminals who were used only to torture people. One man had a grenade being put into his pants. Some protestors came to the nest riot in a wheelchair. Some told that they did not believe that such horror could exist.
'Goodbye to life, you will be killed': how detained protesters are bullied in Belarus
https://www.forumdaily.com/en/proshhajtes-s-zhiznyu-vas-budut-ubivat-kak-v-belarusi-izdevayutsya-nad-zaderzhannymi-uchastnikami-protesta/
In Belarus, after the protest actions that began after the presidential elections, thousands of people were detained, arrested and abused. Many were beaten, humiliated and starved to death. Service BBC spoke with several people who were ill-treated in Belarusian police vehicles, prisons and police departments.
Alina Beresneva, 20 years old
From August 9 to August 10, my friends and I were returning from the center of Minsk and fell under the distribution of riot police. They didn’t take part in the protest action, but they threw me to the ground anyway (there are still scratches on my hand), and everyone was packed onto a bus.
We were brought to Akrestsin Street (to the isolation center of the Main Internal Affairs Directorate of the Minsk City Executive Committee. - Approx. BBC). A man stood at the entrance, he said: "Bitches, let's go faster!" I ask: "Why are you talking to us like that?" He took me by the neck, kicked me into the wall and said: "Bitches, examine the floor, you will know where to walk, where to walk."
We, 13 girls, were put in a cell for four. We asked the employee: can we make a call or call a lawyer? He answered us: “Have you seen enough of American films? This is not the States, you are not entitled to anything. "
The night passed, at about 12 noon they began to count us: they asked for our first and last name. We did not eat for more than a day - everyone's stomachs were twisted, everyone was hungry. Because they asked for food, they were even willing to pay. But we were told: "No, bitches, you will know who to vote for." We were terribly shocked that they answered us that way. It's horrible!
Then evening came, and we began to notice (we had a gap between the trough and the door) that people were taken out and forced to sign something, although they were shouting and indignant. It was our turn to sign these protocols. The girls and I agreed to give up what is attributed to us.
I tried to get acquainted with the protocol, began to read it, I said: “Let me, please, familiarize myself with what I am signing”. In response to me: “I will tell you now, bitch! Let's sign quickly, otherwise I'll ****** [rape] and put you in jail for another 20 days. ” I was in shock, tears flowed, traces of which remained on that protocol. I signed “I agree”, put my signature, did not even know what I was signing for.
We were promised that they would be released immediately. We thought that we would forget about everything, like about a bad dream, but that was not the case. We were taken back to the cell, then moved to another, where there were already 20 girls - there were 33 of us in total. It was a complete mockery.
Without food - it was the most terrible moment. By myself, I'm a strong person. But in such a situation, they broke me. My stomach was so twisted that I did not know what to do. You sit and understand how your body is trying to cope with the situation, but it fails. And you are like a small child: angry, but you have no strength, and no one will help you.
I didn't know what to do. I just sat curled up in a ball, and I got a cold sweat, after which they called me a doctor. I barely got up and through this trough I say: “You see, I can't stand, I feel bad, my head is spinning”. In response, I heard: "You will know where to go next time." In the end, I was given a pill of validol (on an empty stomach). Of course, she did not accept it, so as not to make herself worse.
Another night has passed. We decided that if food was not brought to us, then we would already start screaming and calling for help. By August 11, another paddy wagon arrived. Through the window they saw how the guys were being bullied. They were almost half-naked on their knees with their booty up, with their hands behind their heads. If someone moved, they beat them with sticks.
One of our girls started her period. She asked, "Please give me some toilet paper." She was told: "Wipe with your T-shirt." In the end, she just took off her underwear, washed it and walked until it got dirty again. Then, when there was a shift shift, a woman came and brought us the paper. We just idolized her.
The windows faced the street. We saw people shouting, "Let our children go!" In the next cell there was a man who screamed violently, he had problems with his leg. They could not call an ambulance for three days. So he broke down and started shouting out the window so that people could hear him. But the police officer opened the door (you could hear it well) and began to beat him with the words: “Bitch, knead your ass, now I’ll push your blood back into your ass”.
If there was an opportunity to somehow punish those people, I would gladly do it. All this divided life into “before” and “after”. I used to want to enter the Ministry of Internal Affairs, be a police officer, protect people, human rights, but after I was there, the desire disappeared. Now I just want to leave this country, take all my relatives and friends, so as not to stay here.
Sergey (name changed at the request of the hero), 25 years old
I was detained on the third day of the action, on August 11, near a shopping center. He worked not just in the OMON, it was the Almaz special detachment - the elite that fights against terrorists.
When we saw a convoy of special equipment approaching us, we realized that we could only hide. I sat in a secluded place, for some time they could not find me. It so happened that I saw people kneeling on the ground in front of the shopping center being beaten. One of them fell, a riot policeman leaned towards him, he raised his eyes, and we met. At that moment I thought I was ***** [the end].
I was also taken to the site. Those who said something were beaten. They put me down, beat me a little. I had a backpack with me with respirators and masks. One of the officers looked at him and said, "Oh, this is some kind of organizer." We started looking for the owner.
I decided not to confess - I understood that additional violence would be used. After several minutes of beating, I was again asked if my backpack was. I said I’m not mine. Three special forces men took me around the corner of the shopping center. My hands were tied. They took out a combat grenade (I know how they are outwardly different from flash and noise) and said that they would now take out the check, put it in my panties, I would blow myself up, and then they would say that the guy was blown up by an improvised explosive device. That no one will prove anything and nothing will happen to them.
I kept saying that the backpack was not mine. They put a grenade in my pants and ran away. Then they came back and said that I ****** [became insolent], they started beating me again - in the groin, in the face. The backpack was ordered to be carried in the teeth. While we were going to the paddy wagon, they continued to hit me in the face with their hands. If I dropped my backpack, they beat me. Now my teeth are chipped.
They took me to a paddy wagon, there were 20 people. We were thrown at each other. Above was a riot policeman who walked around the people. They put their feet on the neck and began to choke. People's hands were swollen due to the ties - whoever complained was beaten on the hands. There was an asthmatic in our car, he began to choke. The riot policeman approached him, put his foot on his throat, began to strangle him and said: "If you die, we don't care."
When we were taken outside, paint was spilled on the ground. They smeared it on my face, marked it this way. Then I was transferred to another car. There were four officers with truncheons: they put you on the floor and beat you in your legs, saying: “This is not to run! I got it already! " There I was alone, perhaps others were taken there. The girls were not beaten in front of me.
Then they returned me to the general paddy wagon. There were two girls of 18 years old. Their fault was that they raised their heads and paid attention to the fact that someone in the cabin was getting sick. After several such calls, a riot policeman approached one of them, started shouting at her, and grabbed her by the hair. He somehow cut off part of her hair and said: "You are whores, we will send you to a pre-trial detention center, we will put you in a cell with the men, you will be ****** [raped] there, and then we will take you to the forest."
There was a guy who didn't want to unlock the phone. He was stripped naked and told that if he did not tell the password, he would be raped with sticks. He agreed, then they threw him to lie with the others.
On the subject: Protests in Belarus: 7 thousand detainees, female human chains, support from the US diaspora
We were brought to some crossing point. We left the paddy wagon. There was a corridor of 40 people to another bus. When you walk on it, they beat you. You fall - they beat you until you get up (on the legs, on the head). When I got to the bus, I fell from a blow. The special forces drew attention to me again, because I had a T-shirt of solidarity with Russian political prisoners. They additionally beat me, and then took me by the arms and legs and threw me into the bus like a sack.
They yelled at me, told me to crawl to a certain point. I crawled slowly, they beat me again. When I crawled, I simply could not move. Another employee came up to me, put his foot on his back and began to beat me on the head with a truncheon - no longer a simple rubber one, but with a metal rod. I understood this, because after the first blow it turned me off. I stopped feeling something.
He beat for a while. Then people piled on top of me, it was hard to breathe. Those who were on top continued to beat. It was not clear where it was worse - above, where you are with air, but they beat, or below, where you are suffocating, but you are not beaten.
Then they dropped us off, there was another “corridor” where they beat us. We were transferred to a paddy wagon in a “glass” cell. It was designed for three people, eight were pushed into it. I was pressed against the wall and saw blood - only then I realized that my head was broken. At some point he lost consciousness, this was repeated several times.
When we were brought to the institution, due to injuries and stuffiness, I simply could not stand and fell out of the cell. They said, "It looks like this one is ready." I was thrown out of the paddy wagon and thrown. The doctors immediately approached me, they said that my head was cut, everything was beaten, as if there was a concussion. I was nauseous and drooling. After that, they didn't touch me. The riot police themselves were already standing and arguing whether I would die or not.
There weren't enough ambulances to take everyone out, I lay for an hour. As a result, they came for me. In the ambulance I asked to be taken home, and not to the hospital, because from there the protesters are taken away. But because of a broken head and a suspicion of a broken leg, they still took me to the hospital.
The doctors understand that people are being tortured, they try to take out whoever they can. In total, they put 12 stitches on three wounds, did operations, and photographs. A few hours later my friends took me out of the hospital. Due to the fact that I had neither a passport nor a telephone, my identity was never established.
While they beat me, I didn't think about anything most of the time. I was scared, I did not expect such violence. I thought about how to group in order to stay healthy. To be honest, I also thought about emigration. That if nothing changes, I will be scared to live in a country where you can be killed at any moment and no one will be punished. It is scary to think that employees of these structures live next to us, torturing people and continuing to live their normal lives.
Oleg, 24 years old (name changed at the request of the hero)
I am a trucker, I have nothing to do with politics, not an enemy of the people. Came a week ago from a flight from Siberia. I looked at what was happening on the Internet. I saw the children go out, grandmothers. I thought: I, a young guy, will sit at home? And he went too.
I was detained [on the night] from 10 to 11 August, closer to midnight. There was cotton not far from me. I was stunned. I saw a guy lying on the ground. I wanted to help him up, but his leg was practically ripped off. A flash-bang grenade hit him directly in the cup, his knee was gone.
The phone fell somewhere, I ran to look for an ambulance. One drove by, asked the doctors to drive up. They asked me and a few other guys to stay to help. About twenty meters away were riot policemen - with shields, weapons, machine guns.
They did not take us away, they told others not to touch us. And then they ran up from behind, put them down quickly, hit me on the legs. They put their hands behind their heads and kicked them. The doctor tried to explain, shouted: "What are you doing, we cannot cope here, people are helping!"
First they lifted us up, and then after a minute and a half they ran up again and beat us with truncheons. On the way to the paddy wagon, they beat me, in the paddy wagon they also beat me, shouted: "Oh, you are finished creatures." Were legs, hands, flew all over the body. With us sat a man of about fifty, a disabled person of the second group. He asked for a pill, said that he felt bad. He was constantly beaten.
When the big cell in the paddy wagon was full, they began to sort us into small ones - six people each. There was nothing to breathe, since the window is very small and one. We sat in this smoke channel for an hour and a half. After that we were taken to Akrestsin Street. When we ran out, a corridor of police officers and riot policemen lined up. We ran to the fence - they beat us. They smiled and said: “Did you want a change? There will be changes for you! "
For an hour and a half we stood with our heads bowed on our knees in front of a concrete fence. There were stones, my knees are still blue. If someone was indignant, they beat him. One man shouted that he was an FSB officer. He was surrounded, given to the solar plexus, his men were kneaded with clubs for five. The reporter from Russia was beaten, he shouted to the point of horror. They beat me for any question.
I stood still, not thinking about anything. I felt very sorry for the people who were beaten. I also flew periodically. Then they took us into the building, while we ran to hand over our belongings, they continued to beat us with truncheons. After we were driven into the exercise yard, there were about a hundred and thirty people, everyone was standing one on top of the other. Once every two hours, ten people were taken to the toilet and once again an hour they were given two two-liter bottles of water. Some did not have time to look at them, as they were already over.
Then they again took us out into the street, beating us along the way - they brought us to our knees and interrogated. Then everyone was sent to a cell: while we were running there, we continued to fly. There were 120 people in the cell; during the day they were given only water and one loaf of bread for everyone.
The next morning there were trials, by that time there were about 25 people in the cell. At the trial they agreed to release me, but no arrest was ordered. But after that they still kept him until the evening. My personal belongings were never found, they promised to give them back later. They took me out into the street - I saw a crowd of guys lying face down. They were beaten and shouted. And their relatives were standing over the fence.
The policeman himself, who was standing with us, said that it was horror, it was scary. When they took us out through the backyard, we were told that if we went up to the crowd, where there were relatives and the press, they would take us away, and we would be blue. But when we left, people ran up to us like heroes - they offered cigarettes, they gave us a call to relatives. As a result, my legs, back and shoulder blades were completely beaten off.
Marylya, 31 years old
On August 12, my friends and I, after 23 pm, were returning home by car along an empty avenue - there were no more traffic jams in Minsk, as in the first days of protests, when cars were blocked. And not far from the Stele, where the people gathered on election day, a traffic cop stopped us and ordered us to pull over to the side of the road. In addition to the traffic police car, there were several "minibuses" (minibuses. - Approx. BBC). People in black protective uniforms, in black balaclavas came up - it seems they had the stripes of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but I won't say for sure - I could not see it. There were a lot of them, only three people fell on our car. They did not introduce themselves, they told us to get out of the car.
We were told to unlock the phones, then the employees began to look at what photos and videos we had. They took me aside, and the guys put their hands on the car. The guys opened their phones, and in the gallery everyone had videos from previous nights - how cars are in traffic and buzzing and so on. We know that by law we are not obliged to show this, but when a bunch of black people with machine guns or some other weapon are standing near you ... They started cursing, shouting: “You wanted change? We will show you the changes now! ” They began to discuss what to do with us, they decided to take them to the police department.
They took the keys to our car, took them into the bus, we didn't see the driver's face either. Two people sat down with us with weapons, and someone was driving behind us in our car. Then they remembered about me, told to dial the password from the phone. I say, "My hands are shaking." One of them even said: "Leave her alone, why do you need this." The second - the most aggressive - took my phone away from me and also began to say: "Here, there is a video from the protests ..."
We were taken to the inner courtyard of the police department - there were already guys lying on the asphalt from the car that had been brought in front of us, and the girl was standing near the wall. They put me not far from her, too, facing the wall, and the guys along the other wall. And I heard the blows and realized that they were beating my husband - because the one who beat said: "Why do you need a white bracelet?" It was a white rubber bracelet on my husband's arm - a symbol of our support for Tikhanovskaya and for peaceful change. I wanted to take a look, but those who were behind me said, "Don't jerk your head."
They came to rewrite the data. An officer approached me, apparently the police department, without a mask and in civilian clothes - I could not see his face either, because I was facing the wall. He told me to enter the password on the phone, but he said: “Mashenka,” “If you need anything, please,” - such a super-kind policeman.
While I unlocked the phone, I managed to remove Telegram and something else from it, because I heard them say that they would watch our subscriptions. He said, “I'll see what you deleted now,” but he failed.
The guys with the girl from another car were taken away somewhere and then they also began to call us by our last name. While I was walking, the one who looked like a riot policeman started shouting for me to lower my head. And the employee in civilian clothes says: "Don't go to her, everything is fine." And then such a story happened. We were already told to take our things, they gave us the phones - but one of the friends was called by his wife all the time, and he had Tsoi's song “Change!” Installed on his ringtone. He was told to turn off the sound, and someone from behind said: "Don't take them away, they haven't learned their lesson yet."
We were led and put facing another wall of the courtyard. Guys - with my hands behind my head, I just kept my hands behind my back. The husband, for the fact that he chuckled, was hit on the legs, told to spread his legs wider. At first they told me that I could stand as I wanted, but then another riot policeman came up and told me to put my legs wider too. All the time they gave different commands and it was difficult to understand what they wanted. One riot policeman allowed the guy, whose legs were numb, to squat, and another came up, kicked him in the legs and ordered him to stand up against the wall again.
They stood behind us and scoffed, said: "We would sit at home." Our friend's hand became numb, he was forbidden to move it, but they began to say: "Why are you hanging around with protests if you are so frail?" They said basically the same phrases that I had already heard from acquaintances who were detained: “You are throwing Molotov cocktails at us,” “It's the West that pays for everything.”
In the end, we heard another guy brought in, and the rhythmic sounds of truncheons on the body - several people beat him very severely. He asked not to beat, but they cursed and beat. This was really scary. Then they took him away, and we were told that we would stand until seven in the morning, the end of their shift. Then someone came up and asked: “Who is the most violent here? Not a girl. ” His colleagues started laughing and pointed at our friend. And they forced him to do push-ups, under the count, they told him to freeze in the most uncomfortable position, and promised that if he didn't push out normally, they would beat him - all with mockery and obscenities. Then they told me to squat.
Then we were told that they would be released without a protocol: "We hope you will not participate anywhere else." We returned home at about 2 am. The guys have big bruises from rubber sticks. But we are not going to stop, because it was their main goal - to intimidate, but they themselves are afraid of us and perceive more as enemies.
Nikita Telizhenko, journalist Znak.com, 29 years old
I went to the store, I needed to buy clothes, because after the previous promotions my old one was worn out. I took a package with things. I reached the Palace of Sports Street and halfway saw that all the young people who got off the bus were immediately transferred from the bus stop to the paddy wagons. I began to describe this for the editorial board. At the moment when I was doing this, a bus pulled up to me, people ran out from there, grabbed my hands.
They grabbed my phone. We decided that since I am writing something and I have the Internet, I am the coordinator. They saw photographs of special equipment and previous actions. They loaded me into a car and took me to a paddy wagon, in which I just sat for two hours. I tried to explain that I am a journalist, but this did not fascinate them.
Tin started near the “Moskovsky” police station, where they brought us. The vans are opening, people are wringing their hands. If the head is higher than necessary, it immediately flies over the back of the head either with a club or with a shield. They are dragging. I saw that the guy who was being led in front of me, just for the sake of a joke, was banging his head in full swing on the doorframe. He screamed, raised his head, he still fell.
Then what struck me the most was the “human carpet”. We were taken to the floor and the first thing I see are people who are just lying on the floor. On them are not only riot police, but you are forced too. I had to step on the man, because when I tried to get around him, I flew again.
Blood on the floor, stool. You are thrown on the floor, you cannot turn your head. I was lucky to have a mask. Nearby there was a guy who tried to turn around, he was hit on the head with full swing with ankle boots, although he had already been badly beaten before. There were people with broken hands who could not move them.
People were forced to pray. They brought in a guy who begged: "Dads, don't hit." He was told that they would now hide him, they would start counting his teeth. Several hits. He is already choking on blood, and the riot policeman says to him - "Read Our Father!" [xian prayer in Russian, they forced people to pray xian god] And here you sit and hear a guy reading with a broken mouth: "Our Father, like the One of Heaven..."
The scariest moment is when you are sitting, and people in the corridors, one floor below, are beaten to such an extent that they cannot speak and howl. You turn your head - there is blood on the floor, people are shouting, and on the wall is a board of honor with smiling policemen who do it. You realize that you are in hell.
After the shift change, it turned out that two of the detainees were missing. They realized that they were already confusing people, they let us down into solitary confinement cells - 20-30 people each. There is no ventilation, you could stand near the wall. An hour later everything was wet from the fumes. For those who are older, it became bad, one guy lost consciousness.
Then, about 16 hours after arriving at the police station, they began to take us out very harshly and toss us into the paddy wagon. It was forbidden to sit, people were stacked in three layers. Some people with injuries were downstairs, they could not breathe. They screamed in pain - they just approached them, beat them on the head with truncheons, humiliated them. It was reminiscent of torture by the Gestapo, for in ordinary life it is unrealistic to imagine that this is possible.
It was impossible to go to the toilet. Those who asked were told to walk by themselves. As a result, people really did go for themselves, including by and large. By that time, everyone had already stopped asking for something - even in the police department they understood: there would be no help. Those who complained were severely beaten.
When the paddy wagon moved, the people were allowed to crawl. But if someone tried to lean on the seats or raised their head, they immediately flew in. Then the riot police got bored, and they told to kneel down and sing the anthem of Belarus. This was filmed on the phone. As the paddy wagon drove, the surrounding cars honked. But if the drivers knew what was going on inside, they would not be honking - they would have taken these paddy wagons by storm.
Lost my composure after an hour and a half. I said: "Sorry, I'm a Russian journalist, what have I done?" I began to get hits in the kidneys, neck, head. Answer never received. There was a guy with me who said: "Please shoot us, why are you torturing us." And he was told that they would not shoot anyone, because even more pain awaits us in prison and they will "cock" us in turn.
When we were brought to [the detention center] in Zhodino, we were told: "Goodbye to life, they will kill you here." But, to our surprise, they accepted us normally. The colony employees showed cruelty only until the SOBR members left. People were glad that they were in prison - most of all they were afraid that they would be taken back to Minsk by paddy wagons.
I stayed there for three or four hours. The colonel came for me, they took me out, went to look for my things. Those with whom I was, were glad that they let me go and I could tell about what was happening. At the exit we were met by a representative of the consulate. I was deported from Belarus with a ban on entry for five years and taken to Smolensk.
If there was no ban, I would return to work in Belarus. There are unique people. They perceive change with a plus sign and are united by one goal.
Natalia, 34 years
We walked along the street without incident with our friends. Then a crowd of people appeared behind us, running away from the Omomnites, then they themselves. Several of them ran past us, and one, apparently tired of running, clung to my friend and me. He said: “Why are you laughing? I see you're having fun. And the fact that today the face of a policeman was cut with a splinter of a bottle is funny to you too, right? ” And I didn't laugh, I wanted him to leave us in peace.
But somehow it made him angry, he dragged me into the minibus. There were already people in the minibus. We were asked: “Do you like being meat? Where is your Tikhanovskaya? Where is your Tie? "
We arrived at the Sovetskoye police station. On the street, everyone was put facing the fence, with their hands on the fence. And we stood near this wall until the next morning. We were periodically rearranged. They took me to the basement, where they confiscated my things, took my phone, and sent me back to this wall.
Someone [behind the wall] drove up in a car and tried to turn on Tsoi “Changes”. And we heard how the police were talking among themselves that they should also be dragged here - along with "changes". Some girl was looking for a guy. She probably got on the roof of the car, because we saw her face behind the fence. And the cops talked among themselves: "Look, there is some kind of mare, go drive her out of there!" They talk about people like that.
The guys were beaten. One of them, apparently, had a broken rib. The girl had a broken leg - apparently, she was [injured] when they were taken. The most daring ones received first. Soon the police van drove up and started loading the guys there. Someone was clearly beaten there. Apparently, a lot of people were loaded there, and I heard: “Legs under you! Legs under you! ”, From there came blows and shouts. They were taken by paddy wagons somewhere.
The girls remained. They started calling us into the building of the police department and offering to sign the protocol. The protocol contained nonsense: that I took an active part in the rally and shouted the slogans "Stop, cockroach!" For myself, I decided that I would not sign anything. Those who signed were released immediately home. Those who refused were taken to Akrestsin Street to the Center for Isolation of Offenders (TIC).
In fact, not all freaks are there. We came across a "kind policeman" who said: "Well, well, while no one sees, you can write a text message home." I don’t know if this is such a role or if he’s really good, but I want to think that there is something human in them.
Due to the influx of a huge number of people there was a complete mess. We were supposed to be placed in the CIP, but it turned out that there was no place there, and they decided to place us in a temporary detention center. There was no room in the IVS either, and then we were temporarily assigned to the so-called glass - a room a meter by a little less than a meter. The four of us were put in there.
Then we were placed in a cell for two people. They gave out one mattress. In addition to the beds already occupied by the two women, the surfaces included a table, a bench and a floor. We slept who where: who was on the table - one might say on the bookshelf, who was on the mattress across. Probably, we did not eat for a day, but then we began to feed.
When our third day came to an end and we said that we should be released, they answered us: "Nobody owes you anything here." They say to you that you are some kind of beast. Is it even possible with animals like that? This is a different kind of format of people who communicate with us, as with criminals, and with each other.
74 hours later, on the night of August 13, we were told to leave the cell, taken out into the street, and put facing the wall. They said that they would not give things back - and in my case it was a phone number, passport, driving license, money. Someone had the only keys to the apartment. The two girls continued to be indignant, then they were hit and told that they were going back to the cell.
I turned to them and asked: “What are you doing?”, For which I received a blow to the face with a hand and a truncheon on the legs. The evil cop asked: “Who else has things here?”, Then said to run away. All have boots without laces, but you have to run to the exit. We were told: "We have a cordon there, if you hit it, you will come back."
https://www.forumdaily.com/en/proshhajtes-s-zhiznyu-vas-budut-ubivat-kak-v-belarusi-izdevayutsya-nad-zaderzhannymi-uchastnikami-protesta/
Girl:
Beaten with ten men, threatened to 'let go in a circle', put on their knees, called terrorist, animal...
The girl spoke about the attitude of the punishers to those detained in Belarusian prisons. pic.twitter.com/07xiJpmkps
- https://twitter.com/Virus19Korona/status/1294010755789066240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
A brutal attack on a civilian and proof for where it was filmed#LiveBelarus#Go away #LukashenkoGoAway @nexta_tv pic.twitter.com/uccEWRd1xw
- https://twitter.com/burtstengl/status/1293614269741838336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
"It was scary when you take out a child covered in blood, and the child screams:" Mom, I don't want to die! "
An interview with the parents of a five-year-old girl from Belarus, who was wounded when the security forces began beating the car in which they were sitting with truncheons: pic.twitter.com/iiet6Wutwg
- https://twitter.com/CurrentTimeTv/status/1293839321926184960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Human hunt. People detained in Belarus during protests tell stories of torture and humiliation
Thousands of people have been detained in Belarus during protests that began over disagreement with the official results of the presidential election. Not only the protesters were detained, the riot police grabbed ordinary passers-by too. This tactic of detention is common for Belarusian law enforcers. However, they have never been so cruel.
LB.ua tells the stories of Belarusians who were released earlier or were ordinary passers-by. They talk about both physical and psychological violence applied to adults, children and teenagers. If you feel that the description of torture may be too much for you, we suggest that you omit Andrey's account.
Oksana Rasulova, journalist
Inna: "I can't forgive what they did to my child"
On 11 August, I was in the city with my 9-year-old son Zakhar. I was returning home to the Kamennaya Gorka district. Public transport did not work, everything was blocked. We walked for three hours from the centre of Minsk to our district because we could not call a taxi - neither the Internet nor mobile communication worked. So I just hailed a taxi.
I decided to visit a store in the mall near our house. A peaceful rally was taking place nearby, there were many women in white, people were applauding. There was no hardware or military. Zakhar and I often go to this store, cashiers and security guards know us. So I allowed him to go to the bathroom on his own while I was buying groceries.
When I was at the counter, I heard gunfire and explosions. The guards immediately closed the door of the store to prevent a crowd of protesters from running in. We went to the front door to see what was happening. I was filming everything on my phone, it was awful. People were running in panic, shouting, security officers in black were chasing and shooting at them, throwing stun grenades. I used to work in an investigative committee but I couldn't make out the security officers' badges - some orange ones with triangles. Gas began to creep into the store, making us tearful. Those who dared to leave the store were immediately apprehended.
And then these security officers in black began to break down the door to the mall. The guards tried to reason with them, saying that there were many women and children inside. When I realised that they could not be stopped, I rushed out to look for my son. I turned around to run for the toilets when I heard crackles, screams and blows. They shouted: "Bitches! Prostitutes! Face down to the floor!" At first, I even thought that they were some kind of terrorists, that our police could not do that.
I managed to hide under the counter - I thought that Zakhar would be going the toilets, I would call him and we would hide. However, I immediately heard people being beaten, I couldn't stand it and ran out to look for him. I shouted: "Zakhar! Zakhar!" And then I saw him on the floor, an unfamiliar woman covered him with her body. He jumped to his feet and ran to me. They started to take people out. We managed to get out of the store but we walked on the floor covered with blood.
I didn't know how to go home, it was horrible all around us. We crossed the mall but there was shooting there. Then I saw a group of about 30 security officers and rushed to them. I cried and begged them to walk me and my child home. One of them came to us, took my hand and led me. Another security officer joined in and they reassured Zakhar. And he kept saying how scared he was, how he was beaten because he didn't want to get down on the floor but wanted to look for his mother, how he was pressed with a truncheon…
We stopped at the road at a traffic light. A blue bus approached, and men in black uniforms came out of it. They started shooting at passing cars. The security officers who accompanied us disappeared somewhere, and my son and I hid behind a tree. When everything calmed down and the green light came on, we started crossing the road. We were almost hit by a traffic police car and two blue buses without license plates.
I could see our house already but I couldn't come closer because people were running there, being chased by security officers. I was scared. I again asked a group of security officers who were just standing at the bus stop to escort us. One young man asked his boss if he could.
I could not stand it any longer and asked him: "What are you doing ?! How can that be?! I was just visiting a store with my child! What did you do to my child?! Where am I now - is it Belarus or a dream?! Why should I be afraid to go home?!"
—
He answered: "Woman, do not provoke me. If you are so scared, we will take you and the child into the bus - you will spend time there too." I fell silent. He did allow a few guys to walk us to the entrance.
When we came there, I sat down on the bench and said: "Guys, do you even understand why you are shooting at people?" Everyone was silent and one only of them said: "Fuck knows."
I looked at these guys and I had a feeling they were not one of us. I worked in law enforcement but I have never seen such cruelty. However it is not them who are real beasts, I think, but their commanders.
Zakhar has a very bad sleep and is afraid of sharp sounds. Once he hears any clap, he says that it is shooting and we need to hide. Yesterday we were at the playground in the afternoon and teenagers ran past us, he got scared and ran to me shouting: "Mom, this is riot police, let's run away!"
On the first day after those events, I was listless, I didn't understand what was happening and what to do. Fear and panic came later. Today I'm scared to live. It's scary to be home. I even barricade the door because I'm afraid they'll break in. I'm afraid to answer calls because what if it is a social service that wants to take Zakhar away? It is very easily done here. Anyway, I tell on social networks about what happened, talk to journalists. It hurts and offends me that I should be so afraid. But I can't forgive what they did to my child. Now the main thing for me is to protect the rights of the child and the honour and dignity of women. Mothers from all over the country call to support me.
Andrey*: "They put a grenade in my pants and said they would blow it up"
I was detained near a shopping mall. There were about 300 people. There were two buses with the Almaz special-purpose police, and about six more vehicles with the OMON riot police came later. We were surrounded, both protesters and ordinary shoppers. I tried to run away but I failed. We were all brought to our knees. Those lying were beaten. I had a backpack with masks, respirators and gloves. One of the riot policemen decided that the backpack belonged to the organizers. He began to ask around whose backpack it was. I said it was not mine but I was beaten. Then three men in black uniform took me out of the mall, showed me an army grenade (not a stun grenade) and shoved it into my pants. They said: "Now we will take a fuse out and you will be torn into pieces, and we will say that you set off an improvised explosive device. And we will not be punished for this." They ran a few metres away but then returned. The grenade did not explode. They beat me, targeting the groin in particular.
I was taken to a paddy wagon. No-one was sitting, everyone was stacked on the floor. OMON policemen walked over people. They deliberately stood on the neck to strangle a person. If you said something, they beat you. Our hands were swollen from ties on our hands, and when we complained about it, they beat our hands.
Doctors provide medical help to people who have been tortured and beaten by police
There was a guy with asthma in the paddy wagon, he was screaming that he was suffocating because he was crushed by people. A riot policeman approached him and put his foot on his neck. "I don\'t care if you die," he said.
—
The severity depends on who is detaining. We were detained by the Almaz special police and there are just animals. As I was being led, special policemen simply approached and beat me. Not because I raised my head or said anything, but for no reason.
Beating never stopped. Almost every minute. With and without a reason. They decided that I was the organiser because of this backpack, so at some point I was taken out of the car. White paint was spilled on the asphalt. I was thrown to the ground, literally trampled, they smeared my face with white paint and transferred me to another paddy wagon. There were riot policemen standing on both sides, they put me face down on the floor and started kicking my legs from both sides. They beat me for a few minutes, wanted to crush my kneecaps. After that, you can't walk normally. I'm not sure if everyone was taken to this paddy wagon. I was sent back to the others. Twenty people were lying on top of each other. A riot policeman held his foot on my neck the entire time. Sometimes he pressed harder.
All phones were confiscated and unlocked. They knocked passwords out of us. One boy was stripped naked and threatened that he would be raped with truncheons if he did not say his password. He said.
There were a few girls aged around 18. They tried to draw attention to some guys who were sick. Then one security officer approached the girl, grabbed her by the hair and started shouting: "Whore, why did you come here at all?! Don't open your mouth!" When she started saying something, he shaved part of her hair and said that if she did not shut up, they would be taken to a pre-trial detention centre, thrown into a cell with men and raped all night. And then they will be taken to the forest and she will live with it.
We were taken from the mall to the city centre. There is a kind of special point where people from paddy wagons are transferred further. We were beaten and made to crawl out of the paddy wagon with our hands tied. Then there was a corridor of people, 20 on each side. They beat us as we were walking. If someone fell, he was beaten until he got up. When I crawled to the end of this corridor, two men in black noticed my T-shirt - it was a T-shirt in support of Oleh Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko. They started shouting that I had something against Russia, beat me and threw me into a bus like a sack and told me to crawl. I was crawling slowly because my hands were tied and my legs were injured. I was beaten for that too. When I crawled to the designated place, a special police officer approached me, put his foot on my neck and started beating me on the head with a rubber truncheon with a metal rod. I don't know how long he beat me because I blacked out. More people were thrown on top of me. I don't know how many, but I felt that they were also beaten. I was lying and thinking that I did not really know whether it was better to be above, where you can breathe but you are beaten, or suffocate down below where you are not beaten.
We were transferred to another paddy wagon which was to take us to the detention centre. There were separate sections for people. They were designed for three but eight of us got pushed in there. It was hard to breathe. My legs failed me, so I hung on my neighbours and leaned against the wall. And only then I saw blood flowing down the wall, so I realized that my head was injured. On the way, I lost consciousness several times so when the door of the paddy wagon opened, I just fell out. We were just thrown out of the car and I lay there until the medics arrived.
There was no beating there. I fainted, I was shaking, saliva was dripping out of my mouth, I felt nauseous, my arms and legs were blue. The doctors said that I needed to be hospitalized, so no-one touched me anymore. They turned me on my side so that I wouldn't suffocate.
Relatives and friends greet people after their release from a pre-trial detention centre in Minsk
When I was lying in the yard, I could hear screams. Everyone was put on their knees and beaten. I lay there for an hour, and the beatings did not stop for an hour.
The medics really tried to help, take the detainees out and calm them down. As I was hospitalised with an injured head, I was not detained. I was not taken to the detention centre either in Akrestsina Street or in Zhodzina, this saved me from further torture.
Miron: "People were stacked in several layers, one on top of the other"
They detained me, my mom and dad, my girlfriend and friends. I was detained on 10 August when I was walking with my friends. We were crossing the street when two blue buses without number plates drove up out of nowhere. Masked men carrying machine guns jumped out of them and we started to run away. Everyone in Belarus knows: if you see them, run.
I was helping my girlfriend to run away. We were blocked by another bus but she continued to run. And I was hit on the arm with a truncheon, twice on the back, knocked down, handcuffed and thrown into a bus. I was lying face down on the floor. They stepped on my back, it was impossible to breathe. It was stuffy. People were stacked in several layers, one on top of the other.
Then I and the others were transferred to a paddy wagon. That cell is designed for one person, but five of us were put there. It was even worse than on the bus, there were two small windows instead of ventilation.
We were taken to a police department and forced to lie face down on the floor in the gym. We lay from 6 pm to 2 am without moving: heads turned to the left, hands in handcuffs behind our backs. It was not until the night that we were allowed to move a little – it was incredibly painful to lie like this. Thanks to the humanity of one officer, we were able to drink water and go to the bathroom.
My parents were looking for me. At 10 pm they went with my girlfriend and relatives of other detainees gathered outside one of the police stations. There were 17 people in total. A paddy wagon approached and took everyone in.
A woman drinks water after being released from a pre-trial detention centre in Minsk
My mother spent two days in custody. She was released on 13 August. My father was released this morning. They were both in Akrestsina Street. My mother has diabetes, and she had to take medication every day, but the detention centre refused to pass them over to her.
—
That's why my uncle, grandmother and I wrote to news media and talked to foreign journalists. Our lawyer filed a complaint because it is illegal not to hand over the medicine, just as it is illegal to detain both parents of a minor, I am 16.
I was released at 2 o'clock at night. My girlfriend was released that night. The protocol, which I was told to sign, mentioned other time and place of detention. They allegedly detained me under Article 23.34 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Republic of Belarus on unauthorised mass events. Then I was already angry and refused to sign. I was allowed to make changes in a special field of the protocol, and only after that I signed it. I later learned that my friends were not even allowed to read the protocol. I was also lucky to have my phone back, but they did not return my backpack. Phones and wedding rings were not returned to the parents.
I was detained for the first time two years ago. My friends and I left paper boats near the Russian Embassy to protest against the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait. But it was less brutal then.
Margarita: "Policemen drove scooters over people lying on the ground"
My friend and I were driving a motorcycle without a license plate in the morning. We were stopped because of this in Nemiga, near the city wall. A friend said that the number just fell off and he had not yet had time to re-attach it. In fact, he did not want to drive with the license plate to prevent police from tracking it. We were asked to open the bags, there were respirators and spray cans with white and red paint. This aroused suspicion in the traffic police but we said we were not going to the rally. I was asked to unbutton my jacket, I had a white-red-white flag underneath. There was no point in resisting. We wanted to ask for a fine but we were taken to a police station. We agreed that my friend Sasha would drive the motorcycle and I would ride in the police car, it was a guarantee that he would not run away.
That's how we got to the Central Police Department. I managed to send a message to my brother. My phone was immediately taken away from me because they thought we were writing in joint chats, they were sure that we have a whole alert system. We were brought to the police department quite calmly, we were not even asked to lower our heads. Everything seemed peaceful, and I even believed that we would just be fined.
We were put near the wall. We spread our legs and rested our palms on the wall. They started shouting but said at once that they would not beat me because I was a girl. But as soon as Sasha spread his legs, he was hit in the groin. The security forces demanded that the legs and arms be spread wider, and they became very angry when people could not do so. They beat them again. They were especially cruel with the tall and broad-shouldered - and Sasha is just like that.
Police said that we had no license plate at all, painted graffiti and were at a rally. They immediately got into my phone. For some reason I did not see any danger and told them my password. They started rummaging through all the messengers, listening to personal voice messages, mocking me that there were messages of concern while I was about to get locked for five years. The Internet did not work but not for them.
We used to joke among us that we were "going to war", they took special interest in these words. I wrote to a friend in the Czech Republic that we were coordinating the movement. In fact, we rode a motorcycle and watched what was happening, where grenades were thrown and where there was shooting. Motorcycles are more mobile than cars, so we passed this information over to a column of cars. Therefore, the security forces were convinced that we were really coordinating and protesting for money. As if they really couldn't believe that no-one was paying us. They called us animals, dumb heads. They asked: "Where is your manicure, beast?"
Especially many motorcyclists were detained that day, and these bearded informal boys were beaten as hard as possible. And also those who easily confessed to what they needed.
We were taken to the courtyard. The men were beaten near the walls until they fell. They forced them to get up and beat them further. In fact, there were normal guys in the police department too, those who did not beat, allowed [detainees] to go inside if it was cold. I was never hit, although in the morning the girls were beaten in the same way. Some even spoke politely and asked us to lower our heads, instead of twisting arms right away. Maybe I was just lucky.
There were doctors in the cell with me who [were detained when they] came out to help the protesters. Police also did not believe that they were not paid for this work. But the police severely beat one guy, he began to choke, and police turned for help to these doctors. After that, they were no longer interrogated, but asked for advice on what to do with the beaten.
I stood outside for seven hours. At 5 am a policeman asked me if I was cold. I said yes and asked permission to squat. But he took me to the cell, it turned out that all the girls were already there, and I was standing alone with the men in the yard. The men who remained outside were lying there half-dead, often without clothes. The policemen took scooters, which were left from the previous detainees, and rode them in the yard in the dark. They drove over people, filmed it on the phone, laughed.
I spent another six hours in the cell, we could even talk. We sat in great company, made acquaintances, created a chat in Telegram. Compared to men, we were in a sanatorium. However, we could not get in touch with relatives or lawyers.
Beaten people were forced to sing the anthem of Belarus. I didn\'t sing, I said I didn\'t know the words.
—
But I was not punished for this. After I read the stories of the other detainees, I realized that at that moment I could have been hit in the head with a truncheon. But then I was really not afraid and believed that they would not bother me because I am a girl. Probably, if I am detained a second time, I will be more afraid. I came to terms with the fact that my friend had been beaten. I knew that everyone would be beaten and there was nothing that could be done about it. I still can't find Sasha.
People gather near the prison where their relatives who took part in the protests are being held.
The policemen were completely convinced that they were right. They said: "Well, to be honest, what do you want? Everything is so good, everything is honest. My daughter is afraid to go outside because of you!"
We were scared that they would send us to Zhodzina but they released us at 10 am. Two protocols were drawn up for me but I could not read them. I only saw the words "screaming", "rally", "resistance during detention" out of the corner of my eye. There was no trial. At the end they said: "We really do not want to cross paths with you here anymore. Don't get caught anymore, girls."
Alexander: "I was forced to admit that the detention was legal"
My friend, my girlfriend and I were going to a pizzeria. We were 100 m away from the central square of Barysaw, probably. We were stopped by the traffic police and told that we should not go further, that we should go through the backyards. We decided to call a taxi and stopped for a smoke. When the taxi driver arrived, we went around the corner of the store. There were riot police. We were grabbed, knocked to the ground and beaten with truncheons and kicked. My friend and I were taken into a paddy wagon, the girl was not touched.
We were left outside in the pre-trial detention centre. Seventy people were simply lying or standing in the inner yard. I saw 15-17-year-old children being beaten.
Then I was interrogated but no longer beaten. They asked who I was, where I was going and why. The fine was not issued, but the doctors were not allowed to see me until the interrogation was finished. They forced me to admit that the detention was legal - orally, I did not sign anything. If I had refused, I would have been put in solitary confinement.
People stand near a pre-trial detention centre where their relatives who took part in protests are held.
The next day I was hospitalised with a brain injury. I was beaten so hard that my retina peeled off. I was in the hospital for three days and every night 3-4 ambulances brought in the beaten people.
One day a policeman brought a girl, threw her like a package, not a person, and told doctors to stitch up her head. He threatened the doctor that if he told anyone, she would be taken away and gangraped. The doctor didn\'t give them the girl anymore - I don\'t know what happened next.
—
I was discharged because there were no more places in the hospital. But now I can't work, I'm a chef. I takes three attempts for me to lace up my trainers. The hospital told me to write an application for a medical examination but I couldn't. There is one "operative" for the whole city, and the forms for these applications were over.
Karina: "A commander drew a cross on my back"
I was detained in Barysaw on 12 August. My friends went missing, we could not find them in hospitals and detention centres. There were raids in the city for several days in a row, so it was dangerous to gather in groups. However, I wanted to somehow show that we were, so I went to the city centre to write slogans on banners: "Long live Belarus!", for example, or "97% of us".
When I was writing a slogan in the city park, a girl saw me. She panicked, started shouting and calling the police. I tried to talk to her, got distracted and did not have time to run away from the policeman. He knocked me to the ground, got over me, five more riot policemen ran up to us - and they all piled on me.
I was dragged to a paddy wagon. It was parked in the backyards where they were chasing people. One man in a uniform and mask began to scold me: "Well, oppositionist, see where protesting took you?!"
"A unit commander ordered me to get out of the paddy wagon. They twisted my arms behind my back and bent me over. He took my paint can and sprayed a cross on my back, a circle on my buttocks, and smeared the entire back of my head with paint. "
—
I was taken to the police department, the local police were shocked by my appearance.
I was taken to a cell. It turned out that there was my friend among other girls. She was detained at a single picket when she was standing with a poster with an excerpt from Korniy Chukovsky's "Cockroach" poem.
I was not beaten but I heard people being brought to the courtyard, beaten and released. At 9 am I had an out-of-court trial, the judges came to me and fined me $400. My friend had a little lower fine. The judge told me to agree with everything, otherwise I will be jailed. I asked five times to put it in the protocol what was done to me. But the judge told me straightforward that they would not consider the actions of the riot police. I'm not going to pay the fine.
I no longer wrote slogans, but instead joined a peaceful chain of solidarity. I spent the first three days of the protests in Minsk, my friends and I brought water, food, medicine. Police threw grenades at us, sprayed gas. Once as six of us were riding in a car, we were stopped and they started to pull us out. Three friends were taken away, we still haven't found them. I was pulled out but not taken into a paddy wagon. For some reason, I was lucky.
Reaction of the authorities
Belarusian Interior Minister Yuryy Karayew described everything you have read about in this article as "injuries of random people". He apologised for that. As if, they "got into the crosshairs".
"In any mass clash, when group or mass violations of public order are curbed, it turns out that they affect those who specifically went for it and those who were nearby, did not leave on time or could not escape. As for these people, those who got into hot water, I, as commander, want to take responsibility and apologise to these people in a purely human way," Karayew said.
* - name changed
Oksana Rasulova, journalist
Source https://en.lb.ua/news/2020/08/15/8770_human_hunt_people_detained.html
_______________________________
During protests 2 people died. 200 were wounded. 7000 were detained and treated like the above. And this monster apologized...
Those in power who are reading this forum and seeing this, if you can help, please help these people. They went to peaceful porotest for their vote and were treated worse than in North Korean labour camp.
Please spread this!
But jewish communism (not what you are told in your West about it, but what it is in reality: prison, slavery, terror, everlasting torture and beatings that never end) that was not beaten to the end, will soon or later raise its head again. You have to kill communism to the end if you wish to sleep peacefully in your tomb when you die, because if you do not, you will never be able to peacefully reside - the screams of pain of your decendents will wake you up...
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Shortly pre-history. What happened was suddenly to everyone, after 26 years of communist dictator Lukashenko, they had a vote in which people chosen Svetlana Tihanovskaya (no party). Anyway they cheat the vote and put Lukashenko back in presidency against the will of the people. Tihanovskaya was sent away to Europe with all her family and people protested. But no one knew what could come to these people. They thought that USSR died, that they lived in 21 century with constitution and related. But when their "Omon" (special force in Belarus and Russia) came and told them: "It is no States here: you are not entitled", they learned the truth where they lived... but it was too late.
People were put to flour one on another as "carpet", so that all four were covered with them tightly and Omon was walking on them crashing their bones. Beaten and traumatized people were put one on another several "carpets" in bus, forced to sing Belarus hymn, for every move their heads were crashed by a rubber stick with iron inside. Omon called some of their own "dogs" meaning they were actually criminals who were used only to torture people. One man had a grenade being put into his pants. Some protestors came to the nest riot in a wheelchair. Some told that they did not believe that such horror could exist.
'Goodbye to life, you will be killed': how detained protesters are bullied in Belarus
https://www.forumdaily.com/en/proshhajtes-s-zhiznyu-vas-budut-ubivat-kak-v-belarusi-izdevayutsya-nad-zaderzhannymi-uchastnikami-protesta/
In Belarus, after the protest actions that began after the presidential elections, thousands of people were detained, arrested and abused. Many were beaten, humiliated and starved to death. Service BBC spoke with several people who were ill-treated in Belarusian police vehicles, prisons and police departments.
Alina Beresneva, 20 years old
From August 9 to August 10, my friends and I were returning from the center of Minsk and fell under the distribution of riot police. They didn’t take part in the protest action, but they threw me to the ground anyway (there are still scratches on my hand), and everyone was packed onto a bus.
We were brought to Akrestsin Street (to the isolation center of the Main Internal Affairs Directorate of the Minsk City Executive Committee. - Approx. BBC). A man stood at the entrance, he said: "Bitches, let's go faster!" I ask: "Why are you talking to us like that?" He took me by the neck, kicked me into the wall and said: "Bitches, examine the floor, you will know where to walk, where to walk."
We, 13 girls, were put in a cell for four. We asked the employee: can we make a call or call a lawyer? He answered us: “Have you seen enough of American films? This is not the States, you are not entitled to anything. "
The night passed, at about 12 noon they began to count us: they asked for our first and last name. We did not eat for more than a day - everyone's stomachs were twisted, everyone was hungry. Because they asked for food, they were even willing to pay. But we were told: "No, bitches, you will know who to vote for." We were terribly shocked that they answered us that way. It's horrible!
Then evening came, and we began to notice (we had a gap between the trough and the door) that people were taken out and forced to sign something, although they were shouting and indignant. It was our turn to sign these protocols. The girls and I agreed to give up what is attributed to us.
I tried to get acquainted with the protocol, began to read it, I said: “Let me, please, familiarize myself with what I am signing”. In response to me: “I will tell you now, bitch! Let's sign quickly, otherwise I'll ****** [rape] and put you in jail for another 20 days. ” I was in shock, tears flowed, traces of which remained on that protocol. I signed “I agree”, put my signature, did not even know what I was signing for.
We were promised that they would be released immediately. We thought that we would forget about everything, like about a bad dream, but that was not the case. We were taken back to the cell, then moved to another, where there were already 20 girls - there were 33 of us in total. It was a complete mockery.
Without food - it was the most terrible moment. By myself, I'm a strong person. But in such a situation, they broke me. My stomach was so twisted that I did not know what to do. You sit and understand how your body is trying to cope with the situation, but it fails. And you are like a small child: angry, but you have no strength, and no one will help you.
I didn't know what to do. I just sat curled up in a ball, and I got a cold sweat, after which they called me a doctor. I barely got up and through this trough I say: “You see, I can't stand, I feel bad, my head is spinning”. In response, I heard: "You will know where to go next time." In the end, I was given a pill of validol (on an empty stomach). Of course, she did not accept it, so as not to make herself worse.
Another night has passed. We decided that if food was not brought to us, then we would already start screaming and calling for help. By August 11, another paddy wagon arrived. Through the window they saw how the guys were being bullied. They were almost half-naked on their knees with their booty up, with their hands behind their heads. If someone moved, they beat them with sticks.
One of our girls started her period. She asked, "Please give me some toilet paper." She was told: "Wipe with your T-shirt." In the end, she just took off her underwear, washed it and walked until it got dirty again. Then, when there was a shift shift, a woman came and brought us the paper. We just idolized her.
The windows faced the street. We saw people shouting, "Let our children go!" In the next cell there was a man who screamed violently, he had problems with his leg. They could not call an ambulance for three days. So he broke down and started shouting out the window so that people could hear him. But the police officer opened the door (you could hear it well) and began to beat him with the words: “Bitch, knead your ass, now I’ll push your blood back into your ass”.
If there was an opportunity to somehow punish those people, I would gladly do it. All this divided life into “before” and “after”. I used to want to enter the Ministry of Internal Affairs, be a police officer, protect people, human rights, but after I was there, the desire disappeared. Now I just want to leave this country, take all my relatives and friends, so as not to stay here.
Sergey (name changed at the request of the hero), 25 years old
I was detained on the third day of the action, on August 11, near a shopping center. He worked not just in the OMON, it was the Almaz special detachment - the elite that fights against terrorists.
When we saw a convoy of special equipment approaching us, we realized that we could only hide. I sat in a secluded place, for some time they could not find me. It so happened that I saw people kneeling on the ground in front of the shopping center being beaten. One of them fell, a riot policeman leaned towards him, he raised his eyes, and we met. At that moment I thought I was ***** [the end].
I was also taken to the site. Those who said something were beaten. They put me down, beat me a little. I had a backpack with me with respirators and masks. One of the officers looked at him and said, "Oh, this is some kind of organizer." We started looking for the owner.
I decided not to confess - I understood that additional violence would be used. After several minutes of beating, I was again asked if my backpack was. I said I’m not mine. Three special forces men took me around the corner of the shopping center. My hands were tied. They took out a combat grenade (I know how they are outwardly different from flash and noise) and said that they would now take out the check, put it in my panties, I would blow myself up, and then they would say that the guy was blown up by an improvised explosive device. That no one will prove anything and nothing will happen to them.
I kept saying that the backpack was not mine. They put a grenade in my pants and ran away. Then they came back and said that I ****** [became insolent], they started beating me again - in the groin, in the face. The backpack was ordered to be carried in the teeth. While we were going to the paddy wagon, they continued to hit me in the face with their hands. If I dropped my backpack, they beat me. Now my teeth are chipped.
They took me to a paddy wagon, there were 20 people. We were thrown at each other. Above was a riot policeman who walked around the people. They put their feet on the neck and began to choke. People's hands were swollen due to the ties - whoever complained was beaten on the hands. There was an asthmatic in our car, he began to choke. The riot policeman approached him, put his foot on his throat, began to strangle him and said: "If you die, we don't care."
When we were taken outside, paint was spilled on the ground. They smeared it on my face, marked it this way. Then I was transferred to another car. There were four officers with truncheons: they put you on the floor and beat you in your legs, saying: “This is not to run! I got it already! " There I was alone, perhaps others were taken there. The girls were not beaten in front of me.
Then they returned me to the general paddy wagon. There were two girls of 18 years old. Their fault was that they raised their heads and paid attention to the fact that someone in the cabin was getting sick. After several such calls, a riot policeman approached one of them, started shouting at her, and grabbed her by the hair. He somehow cut off part of her hair and said: "You are whores, we will send you to a pre-trial detention center, we will put you in a cell with the men, you will be ****** [raped] there, and then we will take you to the forest."
There was a guy who didn't want to unlock the phone. He was stripped naked and told that if he did not tell the password, he would be raped with sticks. He agreed, then they threw him to lie with the others.
On the subject: Protests in Belarus: 7 thousand detainees, female human chains, support from the US diaspora
We were brought to some crossing point. We left the paddy wagon. There was a corridor of 40 people to another bus. When you walk on it, they beat you. You fall - they beat you until you get up (on the legs, on the head). When I got to the bus, I fell from a blow. The special forces drew attention to me again, because I had a T-shirt of solidarity with Russian political prisoners. They additionally beat me, and then took me by the arms and legs and threw me into the bus like a sack.
They yelled at me, told me to crawl to a certain point. I crawled slowly, they beat me again. When I crawled, I simply could not move. Another employee came up to me, put his foot on his back and began to beat me on the head with a truncheon - no longer a simple rubber one, but with a metal rod. I understood this, because after the first blow it turned me off. I stopped feeling something.
He beat for a while. Then people piled on top of me, it was hard to breathe. Those who were on top continued to beat. It was not clear where it was worse - above, where you are with air, but they beat, or below, where you are suffocating, but you are not beaten.
Then they dropped us off, there was another “corridor” where they beat us. We were transferred to a paddy wagon in a “glass” cell. It was designed for three people, eight were pushed into it. I was pressed against the wall and saw blood - only then I realized that my head was broken. At some point he lost consciousness, this was repeated several times.
When we were brought to the institution, due to injuries and stuffiness, I simply could not stand and fell out of the cell. They said, "It looks like this one is ready." I was thrown out of the paddy wagon and thrown. The doctors immediately approached me, they said that my head was cut, everything was beaten, as if there was a concussion. I was nauseous and drooling. After that, they didn't touch me. The riot police themselves were already standing and arguing whether I would die or not.
There weren't enough ambulances to take everyone out, I lay for an hour. As a result, they came for me. In the ambulance I asked to be taken home, and not to the hospital, because from there the protesters are taken away. But because of a broken head and a suspicion of a broken leg, they still took me to the hospital.
The doctors understand that people are being tortured, they try to take out whoever they can. In total, they put 12 stitches on three wounds, did operations, and photographs. A few hours later my friends took me out of the hospital. Due to the fact that I had neither a passport nor a telephone, my identity was never established.
While they beat me, I didn't think about anything most of the time. I was scared, I did not expect such violence. I thought about how to group in order to stay healthy. To be honest, I also thought about emigration. That if nothing changes, I will be scared to live in a country where you can be killed at any moment and no one will be punished. It is scary to think that employees of these structures live next to us, torturing people and continuing to live their normal lives.
Oleg, 24 years old (name changed at the request of the hero)
I am a trucker, I have nothing to do with politics, not an enemy of the people. Came a week ago from a flight from Siberia. I looked at what was happening on the Internet. I saw the children go out, grandmothers. I thought: I, a young guy, will sit at home? And he went too.
I was detained [on the night] from 10 to 11 August, closer to midnight. There was cotton not far from me. I was stunned. I saw a guy lying on the ground. I wanted to help him up, but his leg was practically ripped off. A flash-bang grenade hit him directly in the cup, his knee was gone.
The phone fell somewhere, I ran to look for an ambulance. One drove by, asked the doctors to drive up. They asked me and a few other guys to stay to help. About twenty meters away were riot policemen - with shields, weapons, machine guns.
They did not take us away, they told others not to touch us. And then they ran up from behind, put them down quickly, hit me on the legs. They put their hands behind their heads and kicked them. The doctor tried to explain, shouted: "What are you doing, we cannot cope here, people are helping!"
First they lifted us up, and then after a minute and a half they ran up again and beat us with truncheons. On the way to the paddy wagon, they beat me, in the paddy wagon they also beat me, shouted: "Oh, you are finished creatures." Were legs, hands, flew all over the body. With us sat a man of about fifty, a disabled person of the second group. He asked for a pill, said that he felt bad. He was constantly beaten.
When the big cell in the paddy wagon was full, they began to sort us into small ones - six people each. There was nothing to breathe, since the window is very small and one. We sat in this smoke channel for an hour and a half. After that we were taken to Akrestsin Street. When we ran out, a corridor of police officers and riot policemen lined up. We ran to the fence - they beat us. They smiled and said: “Did you want a change? There will be changes for you! "
For an hour and a half we stood with our heads bowed on our knees in front of a concrete fence. There were stones, my knees are still blue. If someone was indignant, they beat him. One man shouted that he was an FSB officer. He was surrounded, given to the solar plexus, his men were kneaded with clubs for five. The reporter from Russia was beaten, he shouted to the point of horror. They beat me for any question.
I stood still, not thinking about anything. I felt very sorry for the people who were beaten. I also flew periodically. Then they took us into the building, while we ran to hand over our belongings, they continued to beat us with truncheons. After we were driven into the exercise yard, there were about a hundred and thirty people, everyone was standing one on top of the other. Once every two hours, ten people were taken to the toilet and once again an hour they were given two two-liter bottles of water. Some did not have time to look at them, as they were already over.
Then they again took us out into the street, beating us along the way - they brought us to our knees and interrogated. Then everyone was sent to a cell: while we were running there, we continued to fly. There were 120 people in the cell; during the day they were given only water and one loaf of bread for everyone.
The next morning there were trials, by that time there were about 25 people in the cell. At the trial they agreed to release me, but no arrest was ordered. But after that they still kept him until the evening. My personal belongings were never found, they promised to give them back later. They took me out into the street - I saw a crowd of guys lying face down. They were beaten and shouted. And their relatives were standing over the fence.
The policeman himself, who was standing with us, said that it was horror, it was scary. When they took us out through the backyard, we were told that if we went up to the crowd, where there were relatives and the press, they would take us away, and we would be blue. But when we left, people ran up to us like heroes - they offered cigarettes, they gave us a call to relatives. As a result, my legs, back and shoulder blades were completely beaten off.
Marylya, 31 years old
On August 12, my friends and I, after 23 pm, were returning home by car along an empty avenue - there were no more traffic jams in Minsk, as in the first days of protests, when cars were blocked. And not far from the Stele, where the people gathered on election day, a traffic cop stopped us and ordered us to pull over to the side of the road. In addition to the traffic police car, there were several "minibuses" (minibuses. - Approx. BBC). People in black protective uniforms, in black balaclavas came up - it seems they had the stripes of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but I won't say for sure - I could not see it. There were a lot of them, only three people fell on our car. They did not introduce themselves, they told us to get out of the car.
We were told to unlock the phones, then the employees began to look at what photos and videos we had. They took me aside, and the guys put their hands on the car. The guys opened their phones, and in the gallery everyone had videos from previous nights - how cars are in traffic and buzzing and so on. We know that by law we are not obliged to show this, but when a bunch of black people with machine guns or some other weapon are standing near you ... They started cursing, shouting: “You wanted change? We will show you the changes now! ” They began to discuss what to do with us, they decided to take them to the police department.
They took the keys to our car, took them into the bus, we didn't see the driver's face either. Two people sat down with us with weapons, and someone was driving behind us in our car. Then they remembered about me, told to dial the password from the phone. I say, "My hands are shaking." One of them even said: "Leave her alone, why do you need this." The second - the most aggressive - took my phone away from me and also began to say: "Here, there is a video from the protests ..."
We were taken to the inner courtyard of the police department - there were already guys lying on the asphalt from the car that had been brought in front of us, and the girl was standing near the wall. They put me not far from her, too, facing the wall, and the guys along the other wall. And I heard the blows and realized that they were beating my husband - because the one who beat said: "Why do you need a white bracelet?" It was a white rubber bracelet on my husband's arm - a symbol of our support for Tikhanovskaya and for peaceful change. I wanted to take a look, but those who were behind me said, "Don't jerk your head."
They came to rewrite the data. An officer approached me, apparently the police department, without a mask and in civilian clothes - I could not see his face either, because I was facing the wall. He told me to enter the password on the phone, but he said: “Mashenka,” “If you need anything, please,” - such a super-kind policeman.
While I unlocked the phone, I managed to remove Telegram and something else from it, because I heard them say that they would watch our subscriptions. He said, “I'll see what you deleted now,” but he failed.
The guys with the girl from another car were taken away somewhere and then they also began to call us by our last name. While I was walking, the one who looked like a riot policeman started shouting for me to lower my head. And the employee in civilian clothes says: "Don't go to her, everything is fine." And then such a story happened. We were already told to take our things, they gave us the phones - but one of the friends was called by his wife all the time, and he had Tsoi's song “Change!” Installed on his ringtone. He was told to turn off the sound, and someone from behind said: "Don't take them away, they haven't learned their lesson yet."
We were led and put facing another wall of the courtyard. Guys - with my hands behind my head, I just kept my hands behind my back. The husband, for the fact that he chuckled, was hit on the legs, told to spread his legs wider. At first they told me that I could stand as I wanted, but then another riot policeman came up and told me to put my legs wider too. All the time they gave different commands and it was difficult to understand what they wanted. One riot policeman allowed the guy, whose legs were numb, to squat, and another came up, kicked him in the legs and ordered him to stand up against the wall again.
They stood behind us and scoffed, said: "We would sit at home." Our friend's hand became numb, he was forbidden to move it, but they began to say: "Why are you hanging around with protests if you are so frail?" They said basically the same phrases that I had already heard from acquaintances who were detained: “You are throwing Molotov cocktails at us,” “It's the West that pays for everything.”
In the end, we heard another guy brought in, and the rhythmic sounds of truncheons on the body - several people beat him very severely. He asked not to beat, but they cursed and beat. This was really scary. Then they took him away, and we were told that we would stand until seven in the morning, the end of their shift. Then someone came up and asked: “Who is the most violent here? Not a girl. ” His colleagues started laughing and pointed at our friend. And they forced him to do push-ups, under the count, they told him to freeze in the most uncomfortable position, and promised that if he didn't push out normally, they would beat him - all with mockery and obscenities. Then they told me to squat.
Then we were told that they would be released without a protocol: "We hope you will not participate anywhere else." We returned home at about 2 am. The guys have big bruises from rubber sticks. But we are not going to stop, because it was their main goal - to intimidate, but they themselves are afraid of us and perceive more as enemies.
Nikita Telizhenko, journalist Znak.com, 29 years old
I went to the store, I needed to buy clothes, because after the previous promotions my old one was worn out. I took a package with things. I reached the Palace of Sports Street and halfway saw that all the young people who got off the bus were immediately transferred from the bus stop to the paddy wagons. I began to describe this for the editorial board. At the moment when I was doing this, a bus pulled up to me, people ran out from there, grabbed my hands.
They grabbed my phone. We decided that since I am writing something and I have the Internet, I am the coordinator. They saw photographs of special equipment and previous actions. They loaded me into a car and took me to a paddy wagon, in which I just sat for two hours. I tried to explain that I am a journalist, but this did not fascinate them.
Tin started near the “Moskovsky” police station, where they brought us. The vans are opening, people are wringing their hands. If the head is higher than necessary, it immediately flies over the back of the head either with a club or with a shield. They are dragging. I saw that the guy who was being led in front of me, just for the sake of a joke, was banging his head in full swing on the doorframe. He screamed, raised his head, he still fell.
Then what struck me the most was the “human carpet”. We were taken to the floor and the first thing I see are people who are just lying on the floor. On them are not only riot police, but you are forced too. I had to step on the man, because when I tried to get around him, I flew again.
Blood on the floor, stool. You are thrown on the floor, you cannot turn your head. I was lucky to have a mask. Nearby there was a guy who tried to turn around, he was hit on the head with full swing with ankle boots, although he had already been badly beaten before. There were people with broken hands who could not move them.
People were forced to pray. They brought in a guy who begged: "Dads, don't hit." He was told that they would now hide him, they would start counting his teeth. Several hits. He is already choking on blood, and the riot policeman says to him - "Read Our Father!" [xian prayer in Russian, they forced people to pray xian god] And here you sit and hear a guy reading with a broken mouth: "Our Father, like the One of Heaven..."
The scariest moment is when you are sitting, and people in the corridors, one floor below, are beaten to such an extent that they cannot speak and howl. You turn your head - there is blood on the floor, people are shouting, and on the wall is a board of honor with smiling policemen who do it. You realize that you are in hell.
After the shift change, it turned out that two of the detainees were missing. They realized that they were already confusing people, they let us down into solitary confinement cells - 20-30 people each. There is no ventilation, you could stand near the wall. An hour later everything was wet from the fumes. For those who are older, it became bad, one guy lost consciousness.
Then, about 16 hours after arriving at the police station, they began to take us out very harshly and toss us into the paddy wagon. It was forbidden to sit, people were stacked in three layers. Some people with injuries were downstairs, they could not breathe. They screamed in pain - they just approached them, beat them on the head with truncheons, humiliated them. It was reminiscent of torture by the Gestapo, for in ordinary life it is unrealistic to imagine that this is possible.
It was impossible to go to the toilet. Those who asked were told to walk by themselves. As a result, people really did go for themselves, including by and large. By that time, everyone had already stopped asking for something - even in the police department they understood: there would be no help. Those who complained were severely beaten.
When the paddy wagon moved, the people were allowed to crawl. But if someone tried to lean on the seats or raised their head, they immediately flew in. Then the riot police got bored, and they told to kneel down and sing the anthem of Belarus. This was filmed on the phone. As the paddy wagon drove, the surrounding cars honked. But if the drivers knew what was going on inside, they would not be honking - they would have taken these paddy wagons by storm.
Lost my composure after an hour and a half. I said: "Sorry, I'm a Russian journalist, what have I done?" I began to get hits in the kidneys, neck, head. Answer never received. There was a guy with me who said: "Please shoot us, why are you torturing us." And he was told that they would not shoot anyone, because even more pain awaits us in prison and they will "cock" us in turn.
When we were brought to [the detention center] in Zhodino, we were told: "Goodbye to life, they will kill you here." But, to our surprise, they accepted us normally. The colony employees showed cruelty only until the SOBR members left. People were glad that they were in prison - most of all they were afraid that they would be taken back to Minsk by paddy wagons.
I stayed there for three or four hours. The colonel came for me, they took me out, went to look for my things. Those with whom I was, were glad that they let me go and I could tell about what was happening. At the exit we were met by a representative of the consulate. I was deported from Belarus with a ban on entry for five years and taken to Smolensk.
If there was no ban, I would return to work in Belarus. There are unique people. They perceive change with a plus sign and are united by one goal.
Natalia, 34 years
We walked along the street without incident with our friends. Then a crowd of people appeared behind us, running away from the Omomnites, then they themselves. Several of them ran past us, and one, apparently tired of running, clung to my friend and me. He said: “Why are you laughing? I see you're having fun. And the fact that today the face of a policeman was cut with a splinter of a bottle is funny to you too, right? ” And I didn't laugh, I wanted him to leave us in peace.
But somehow it made him angry, he dragged me into the minibus. There were already people in the minibus. We were asked: “Do you like being meat? Where is your Tikhanovskaya? Where is your Tie? "
We arrived at the Sovetskoye police station. On the street, everyone was put facing the fence, with their hands on the fence. And we stood near this wall until the next morning. We were periodically rearranged. They took me to the basement, where they confiscated my things, took my phone, and sent me back to this wall.
Someone [behind the wall] drove up in a car and tried to turn on Tsoi “Changes”. And we heard how the police were talking among themselves that they should also be dragged here - along with "changes". Some girl was looking for a guy. She probably got on the roof of the car, because we saw her face behind the fence. And the cops talked among themselves: "Look, there is some kind of mare, go drive her out of there!" They talk about people like that.
The guys were beaten. One of them, apparently, had a broken rib. The girl had a broken leg - apparently, she was [injured] when they were taken. The most daring ones received first. Soon the police van drove up and started loading the guys there. Someone was clearly beaten there. Apparently, a lot of people were loaded there, and I heard: “Legs under you! Legs under you! ”, From there came blows and shouts. They were taken by paddy wagons somewhere.
The girls remained. They started calling us into the building of the police department and offering to sign the protocol. The protocol contained nonsense: that I took an active part in the rally and shouted the slogans "Stop, cockroach!" For myself, I decided that I would not sign anything. Those who signed were released immediately home. Those who refused were taken to Akrestsin Street to the Center for Isolation of Offenders (TIC).
In fact, not all freaks are there. We came across a "kind policeman" who said: "Well, well, while no one sees, you can write a text message home." I don’t know if this is such a role or if he’s really good, but I want to think that there is something human in them.
Due to the influx of a huge number of people there was a complete mess. We were supposed to be placed in the CIP, but it turned out that there was no place there, and they decided to place us in a temporary detention center. There was no room in the IVS either, and then we were temporarily assigned to the so-called glass - a room a meter by a little less than a meter. The four of us were put in there.
Then we were placed in a cell for two people. They gave out one mattress. In addition to the beds already occupied by the two women, the surfaces included a table, a bench and a floor. We slept who where: who was on the table - one might say on the bookshelf, who was on the mattress across. Probably, we did not eat for a day, but then we began to feed.
When our third day came to an end and we said that we should be released, they answered us: "Nobody owes you anything here." They say to you that you are some kind of beast. Is it even possible with animals like that? This is a different kind of format of people who communicate with us, as with criminals, and with each other.
74 hours later, on the night of August 13, we were told to leave the cell, taken out into the street, and put facing the wall. They said that they would not give things back - and in my case it was a phone number, passport, driving license, money. Someone had the only keys to the apartment. The two girls continued to be indignant, then they were hit and told that they were going back to the cell.
I turned to them and asked: “What are you doing?”, For which I received a blow to the face with a hand and a truncheon on the legs. The evil cop asked: “Who else has things here?”, Then said to run away. All have boots without laces, but you have to run to the exit. We were told: "We have a cordon there, if you hit it, you will come back."
https://www.forumdaily.com/en/proshhajtes-s-zhiznyu-vas-budut-ubivat-kak-v-belarusi-izdevayutsya-nad-zaderzhannymi-uchastnikami-protesta/
Girl:
Beaten with ten men, threatened to 'let go in a circle', put on their knees, called terrorist, animal...
The girl spoke about the attitude of the punishers to those detained in Belarusian prisons. pic.twitter.com/07xiJpmkps
- https://twitter.com/Virus19Korona/status/1294010755789066240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
A brutal attack on a civilian and proof for where it was filmed#LiveBelarus#Go away #LukashenkoGoAway @nexta_tv pic.twitter.com/uccEWRd1xw
- https://twitter.com/burtstengl/status/1293614269741838336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
"It was scary when you take out a child covered in blood, and the child screams:" Mom, I don't want to die! "
An interview with the parents of a five-year-old girl from Belarus, who was wounded when the security forces began beating the car in which they were sitting with truncheons: pic.twitter.com/iiet6Wutwg
- https://twitter.com/CurrentTimeTv/status/1293839321926184960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Human hunt. People detained in Belarus during protests tell stories of torture and humiliation
Thousands of people have been detained in Belarus during protests that began over disagreement with the official results of the presidential election. Not only the protesters were detained, the riot police grabbed ordinary passers-by too. This tactic of detention is common for Belarusian law enforcers. However, they have never been so cruel.
LB.ua tells the stories of Belarusians who were released earlier or were ordinary passers-by. They talk about both physical and psychological violence applied to adults, children and teenagers. If you feel that the description of torture may be too much for you, we suggest that you omit Andrey's account.
Oksana Rasulova, journalist
Inna: "I can't forgive what they did to my child"
On 11 August, I was in the city with my 9-year-old son Zakhar. I was returning home to the Kamennaya Gorka district. Public transport did not work, everything was blocked. We walked for three hours from the centre of Minsk to our district because we could not call a taxi - neither the Internet nor mobile communication worked. So I just hailed a taxi.
I decided to visit a store in the mall near our house. A peaceful rally was taking place nearby, there were many women in white, people were applauding. There was no hardware or military. Zakhar and I often go to this store, cashiers and security guards know us. So I allowed him to go to the bathroom on his own while I was buying groceries.
When I was at the counter, I heard gunfire and explosions. The guards immediately closed the door of the store to prevent a crowd of protesters from running in. We went to the front door to see what was happening. I was filming everything on my phone, it was awful. People were running in panic, shouting, security officers in black were chasing and shooting at them, throwing stun grenades. I used to work in an investigative committee but I couldn't make out the security officers' badges - some orange ones with triangles. Gas began to creep into the store, making us tearful. Those who dared to leave the store were immediately apprehended.
And then these security officers in black began to break down the door to the mall. The guards tried to reason with them, saying that there were many women and children inside. When I realised that they could not be stopped, I rushed out to look for my son. I turned around to run for the toilets when I heard crackles, screams and blows. They shouted: "Bitches! Prostitutes! Face down to the floor!" At first, I even thought that they were some kind of terrorists, that our police could not do that.
I managed to hide under the counter - I thought that Zakhar would be going the toilets, I would call him and we would hide. However, I immediately heard people being beaten, I couldn't stand it and ran out to look for him. I shouted: "Zakhar! Zakhar!" And then I saw him on the floor, an unfamiliar woman covered him with her body. He jumped to his feet and ran to me. They started to take people out. We managed to get out of the store but we walked on the floor covered with blood.
I didn't know how to go home, it was horrible all around us. We crossed the mall but there was shooting there. Then I saw a group of about 30 security officers and rushed to them. I cried and begged them to walk me and my child home. One of them came to us, took my hand and led me. Another security officer joined in and they reassured Zakhar. And he kept saying how scared he was, how he was beaten because he didn't want to get down on the floor but wanted to look for his mother, how he was pressed with a truncheon…
We stopped at the road at a traffic light. A blue bus approached, and men in black uniforms came out of it. They started shooting at passing cars. The security officers who accompanied us disappeared somewhere, and my son and I hid behind a tree. When everything calmed down and the green light came on, we started crossing the road. We were almost hit by a traffic police car and two blue buses without license plates.
I could see our house already but I couldn't come closer because people were running there, being chased by security officers. I was scared. I again asked a group of security officers who were just standing at the bus stop to escort us. One young man asked his boss if he could.
I could not stand it any longer and asked him: "What are you doing ?! How can that be?! I was just visiting a store with my child! What did you do to my child?! Where am I now - is it Belarus or a dream?! Why should I be afraid to go home?!"
—
He answered: "Woman, do not provoke me. If you are so scared, we will take you and the child into the bus - you will spend time there too." I fell silent. He did allow a few guys to walk us to the entrance.
When we came there, I sat down on the bench and said: "Guys, do you even understand why you are shooting at people?" Everyone was silent and one only of them said: "Fuck knows."
I looked at these guys and I had a feeling they were not one of us. I worked in law enforcement but I have never seen such cruelty. However it is not them who are real beasts, I think, but their commanders.
Zakhar has a very bad sleep and is afraid of sharp sounds. Once he hears any clap, he says that it is shooting and we need to hide. Yesterday we were at the playground in the afternoon and teenagers ran past us, he got scared and ran to me shouting: "Mom, this is riot police, let's run away!"
On the first day after those events, I was listless, I didn't understand what was happening and what to do. Fear and panic came later. Today I'm scared to live. It's scary to be home. I even barricade the door because I'm afraid they'll break in. I'm afraid to answer calls because what if it is a social service that wants to take Zakhar away? It is very easily done here. Anyway, I tell on social networks about what happened, talk to journalists. It hurts and offends me that I should be so afraid. But I can't forgive what they did to my child. Now the main thing for me is to protect the rights of the child and the honour and dignity of women. Mothers from all over the country call to support me.
Andrey*: "They put a grenade in my pants and said they would blow it up"
I was detained near a shopping mall. There were about 300 people. There were two buses with the Almaz special-purpose police, and about six more vehicles with the OMON riot police came later. We were surrounded, both protesters and ordinary shoppers. I tried to run away but I failed. We were all brought to our knees. Those lying were beaten. I had a backpack with masks, respirators and gloves. One of the riot policemen decided that the backpack belonged to the organizers. He began to ask around whose backpack it was. I said it was not mine but I was beaten. Then three men in black uniform took me out of the mall, showed me an army grenade (not a stun grenade) and shoved it into my pants. They said: "Now we will take a fuse out and you will be torn into pieces, and we will say that you set off an improvised explosive device. And we will not be punished for this." They ran a few metres away but then returned. The grenade did not explode. They beat me, targeting the groin in particular.
I was taken to a paddy wagon. No-one was sitting, everyone was stacked on the floor. OMON policemen walked over people. They deliberately stood on the neck to strangle a person. If you said something, they beat you. Our hands were swollen from ties on our hands, and when we complained about it, they beat our hands.
Doctors provide medical help to people who have been tortured and beaten by police
There was a guy with asthma in the paddy wagon, he was screaming that he was suffocating because he was crushed by people. A riot policeman approached him and put his foot on his neck. "I don\'t care if you die," he said.
—
The severity depends on who is detaining. We were detained by the Almaz special police and there are just animals. As I was being led, special policemen simply approached and beat me. Not because I raised my head or said anything, but for no reason.
Beating never stopped. Almost every minute. With and without a reason. They decided that I was the organiser because of this backpack, so at some point I was taken out of the car. White paint was spilled on the asphalt. I was thrown to the ground, literally trampled, they smeared my face with white paint and transferred me to another paddy wagon. There were riot policemen standing on both sides, they put me face down on the floor and started kicking my legs from both sides. They beat me for a few minutes, wanted to crush my kneecaps. After that, you can't walk normally. I'm not sure if everyone was taken to this paddy wagon. I was sent back to the others. Twenty people were lying on top of each other. A riot policeman held his foot on my neck the entire time. Sometimes he pressed harder.
All phones were confiscated and unlocked. They knocked passwords out of us. One boy was stripped naked and threatened that he would be raped with truncheons if he did not say his password. He said.
There were a few girls aged around 18. They tried to draw attention to some guys who were sick. Then one security officer approached the girl, grabbed her by the hair and started shouting: "Whore, why did you come here at all?! Don't open your mouth!" When she started saying something, he shaved part of her hair and said that if she did not shut up, they would be taken to a pre-trial detention centre, thrown into a cell with men and raped all night. And then they will be taken to the forest and she will live with it.
We were taken from the mall to the city centre. There is a kind of special point where people from paddy wagons are transferred further. We were beaten and made to crawl out of the paddy wagon with our hands tied. Then there was a corridor of people, 20 on each side. They beat us as we were walking. If someone fell, he was beaten until he got up. When I crawled to the end of this corridor, two men in black noticed my T-shirt - it was a T-shirt in support of Oleh Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko. They started shouting that I had something against Russia, beat me and threw me into a bus like a sack and told me to crawl. I was crawling slowly because my hands were tied and my legs were injured. I was beaten for that too. When I crawled to the designated place, a special police officer approached me, put his foot on my neck and started beating me on the head with a rubber truncheon with a metal rod. I don't know how long he beat me because I blacked out. More people were thrown on top of me. I don't know how many, but I felt that they were also beaten. I was lying and thinking that I did not really know whether it was better to be above, where you can breathe but you are beaten, or suffocate down below where you are not beaten.
We were transferred to another paddy wagon which was to take us to the detention centre. There were separate sections for people. They were designed for three but eight of us got pushed in there. It was hard to breathe. My legs failed me, so I hung on my neighbours and leaned against the wall. And only then I saw blood flowing down the wall, so I realized that my head was injured. On the way, I lost consciousness several times so when the door of the paddy wagon opened, I just fell out. We were just thrown out of the car and I lay there until the medics arrived.
There was no beating there. I fainted, I was shaking, saliva was dripping out of my mouth, I felt nauseous, my arms and legs were blue. The doctors said that I needed to be hospitalized, so no-one touched me anymore. They turned me on my side so that I wouldn't suffocate.
Relatives and friends greet people after their release from a pre-trial detention centre in Minsk
When I was lying in the yard, I could hear screams. Everyone was put on their knees and beaten. I lay there for an hour, and the beatings did not stop for an hour.
The medics really tried to help, take the detainees out and calm them down. As I was hospitalised with an injured head, I was not detained. I was not taken to the detention centre either in Akrestsina Street or in Zhodzina, this saved me from further torture.
Miron: "People were stacked in several layers, one on top of the other"
They detained me, my mom and dad, my girlfriend and friends. I was detained on 10 August when I was walking with my friends. We were crossing the street when two blue buses without number plates drove up out of nowhere. Masked men carrying machine guns jumped out of them and we started to run away. Everyone in Belarus knows: if you see them, run.
I was helping my girlfriend to run away. We were blocked by another bus but she continued to run. And I was hit on the arm with a truncheon, twice on the back, knocked down, handcuffed and thrown into a bus. I was lying face down on the floor. They stepped on my back, it was impossible to breathe. It was stuffy. People were stacked in several layers, one on top of the other.
Then I and the others were transferred to a paddy wagon. That cell is designed for one person, but five of us were put there. It was even worse than on the bus, there were two small windows instead of ventilation.
We were taken to a police department and forced to lie face down on the floor in the gym. We lay from 6 pm to 2 am without moving: heads turned to the left, hands in handcuffs behind our backs. It was not until the night that we were allowed to move a little – it was incredibly painful to lie like this. Thanks to the humanity of one officer, we were able to drink water and go to the bathroom.
My parents were looking for me. At 10 pm they went with my girlfriend and relatives of other detainees gathered outside one of the police stations. There were 17 people in total. A paddy wagon approached and took everyone in.
A woman drinks water after being released from a pre-trial detention centre in Minsk
My mother spent two days in custody. She was released on 13 August. My father was released this morning. They were both in Akrestsina Street. My mother has diabetes, and she had to take medication every day, but the detention centre refused to pass them over to her.
—
That's why my uncle, grandmother and I wrote to news media and talked to foreign journalists. Our lawyer filed a complaint because it is illegal not to hand over the medicine, just as it is illegal to detain both parents of a minor, I am 16.
I was released at 2 o'clock at night. My girlfriend was released that night. The protocol, which I was told to sign, mentioned other time and place of detention. They allegedly detained me under Article 23.34 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Republic of Belarus on unauthorised mass events. Then I was already angry and refused to sign. I was allowed to make changes in a special field of the protocol, and only after that I signed it. I later learned that my friends were not even allowed to read the protocol. I was also lucky to have my phone back, but they did not return my backpack. Phones and wedding rings were not returned to the parents.
I was detained for the first time two years ago. My friends and I left paper boats near the Russian Embassy to protest against the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait. But it was less brutal then.
Margarita: "Policemen drove scooters over people lying on the ground"
My friend and I were driving a motorcycle without a license plate in the morning. We were stopped because of this in Nemiga, near the city wall. A friend said that the number just fell off and he had not yet had time to re-attach it. In fact, he did not want to drive with the license plate to prevent police from tracking it. We were asked to open the bags, there were respirators and spray cans with white and red paint. This aroused suspicion in the traffic police but we said we were not going to the rally. I was asked to unbutton my jacket, I had a white-red-white flag underneath. There was no point in resisting. We wanted to ask for a fine but we were taken to a police station. We agreed that my friend Sasha would drive the motorcycle and I would ride in the police car, it was a guarantee that he would not run away.
That's how we got to the Central Police Department. I managed to send a message to my brother. My phone was immediately taken away from me because they thought we were writing in joint chats, they were sure that we have a whole alert system. We were brought to the police department quite calmly, we were not even asked to lower our heads. Everything seemed peaceful, and I even believed that we would just be fined.
We were put near the wall. We spread our legs and rested our palms on the wall. They started shouting but said at once that they would not beat me because I was a girl. But as soon as Sasha spread his legs, he was hit in the groin. The security forces demanded that the legs and arms be spread wider, and they became very angry when people could not do so. They beat them again. They were especially cruel with the tall and broad-shouldered - and Sasha is just like that.
Police said that we had no license plate at all, painted graffiti and were at a rally. They immediately got into my phone. For some reason I did not see any danger and told them my password. They started rummaging through all the messengers, listening to personal voice messages, mocking me that there were messages of concern while I was about to get locked for five years. The Internet did not work but not for them.
We used to joke among us that we were "going to war", they took special interest in these words. I wrote to a friend in the Czech Republic that we were coordinating the movement. In fact, we rode a motorcycle and watched what was happening, where grenades were thrown and where there was shooting. Motorcycles are more mobile than cars, so we passed this information over to a column of cars. Therefore, the security forces were convinced that we were really coordinating and protesting for money. As if they really couldn't believe that no-one was paying us. They called us animals, dumb heads. They asked: "Where is your manicure, beast?"
Especially many motorcyclists were detained that day, and these bearded informal boys were beaten as hard as possible. And also those who easily confessed to what they needed.
We were taken to the courtyard. The men were beaten near the walls until they fell. They forced them to get up and beat them further. In fact, there were normal guys in the police department too, those who did not beat, allowed [detainees] to go inside if it was cold. I was never hit, although in the morning the girls were beaten in the same way. Some even spoke politely and asked us to lower our heads, instead of twisting arms right away. Maybe I was just lucky.
There were doctors in the cell with me who [were detained when they] came out to help the protesters. Police also did not believe that they were not paid for this work. But the police severely beat one guy, he began to choke, and police turned for help to these doctors. After that, they were no longer interrogated, but asked for advice on what to do with the beaten.
I stood outside for seven hours. At 5 am a policeman asked me if I was cold. I said yes and asked permission to squat. But he took me to the cell, it turned out that all the girls were already there, and I was standing alone with the men in the yard. The men who remained outside were lying there half-dead, often without clothes. The policemen took scooters, which were left from the previous detainees, and rode them in the yard in the dark. They drove over people, filmed it on the phone, laughed.
I spent another six hours in the cell, we could even talk. We sat in great company, made acquaintances, created a chat in Telegram. Compared to men, we were in a sanatorium. However, we could not get in touch with relatives or lawyers.
Beaten people were forced to sing the anthem of Belarus. I didn\'t sing, I said I didn\'t know the words.
—
But I was not punished for this. After I read the stories of the other detainees, I realized that at that moment I could have been hit in the head with a truncheon. But then I was really not afraid and believed that they would not bother me because I am a girl. Probably, if I am detained a second time, I will be more afraid. I came to terms with the fact that my friend had been beaten. I knew that everyone would be beaten and there was nothing that could be done about it. I still can't find Sasha.
People gather near the prison where their relatives who took part in the protests are being held.
The policemen were completely convinced that they were right. They said: "Well, to be honest, what do you want? Everything is so good, everything is honest. My daughter is afraid to go outside because of you!"
We were scared that they would send us to Zhodzina but they released us at 10 am. Two protocols were drawn up for me but I could not read them. I only saw the words "screaming", "rally", "resistance during detention" out of the corner of my eye. There was no trial. At the end they said: "We really do not want to cross paths with you here anymore. Don't get caught anymore, girls."
Alexander: "I was forced to admit that the detention was legal"
My friend, my girlfriend and I were going to a pizzeria. We were 100 m away from the central square of Barysaw, probably. We were stopped by the traffic police and told that we should not go further, that we should go through the backyards. We decided to call a taxi and stopped for a smoke. When the taxi driver arrived, we went around the corner of the store. There were riot police. We were grabbed, knocked to the ground and beaten with truncheons and kicked. My friend and I were taken into a paddy wagon, the girl was not touched.
We were left outside in the pre-trial detention centre. Seventy people were simply lying or standing in the inner yard. I saw 15-17-year-old children being beaten.
Then I was interrogated but no longer beaten. They asked who I was, where I was going and why. The fine was not issued, but the doctors were not allowed to see me until the interrogation was finished. They forced me to admit that the detention was legal - orally, I did not sign anything. If I had refused, I would have been put in solitary confinement.
People stand near a pre-trial detention centre where their relatives who took part in protests are held.
The next day I was hospitalised with a brain injury. I was beaten so hard that my retina peeled off. I was in the hospital for three days and every night 3-4 ambulances brought in the beaten people.
One day a policeman brought a girl, threw her like a package, not a person, and told doctors to stitch up her head. He threatened the doctor that if he told anyone, she would be taken away and gangraped. The doctor didn\'t give them the girl anymore - I don\'t know what happened next.
—
I was discharged because there were no more places in the hospital. But now I can't work, I'm a chef. I takes three attempts for me to lace up my trainers. The hospital told me to write an application for a medical examination but I couldn't. There is one "operative" for the whole city, and the forms for these applications were over.
Karina: "A commander drew a cross on my back"
I was detained in Barysaw on 12 August. My friends went missing, we could not find them in hospitals and detention centres. There were raids in the city for several days in a row, so it was dangerous to gather in groups. However, I wanted to somehow show that we were, so I went to the city centre to write slogans on banners: "Long live Belarus!", for example, or "97% of us".
When I was writing a slogan in the city park, a girl saw me. She panicked, started shouting and calling the police. I tried to talk to her, got distracted and did not have time to run away from the policeman. He knocked me to the ground, got over me, five more riot policemen ran up to us - and they all piled on me.
I was dragged to a paddy wagon. It was parked in the backyards where they were chasing people. One man in a uniform and mask began to scold me: "Well, oppositionist, see where protesting took you?!"
"A unit commander ordered me to get out of the paddy wagon. They twisted my arms behind my back and bent me over. He took my paint can and sprayed a cross on my back, a circle on my buttocks, and smeared the entire back of my head with paint. "
—
I was taken to the police department, the local police were shocked by my appearance.
I was taken to a cell. It turned out that there was my friend among other girls. She was detained at a single picket when she was standing with a poster with an excerpt from Korniy Chukovsky's "Cockroach" poem.
I was not beaten but I heard people being brought to the courtyard, beaten and released. At 9 am I had an out-of-court trial, the judges came to me and fined me $400. My friend had a little lower fine. The judge told me to agree with everything, otherwise I will be jailed. I asked five times to put it in the protocol what was done to me. But the judge told me straightforward that they would not consider the actions of the riot police. I'm not going to pay the fine.
I no longer wrote slogans, but instead joined a peaceful chain of solidarity. I spent the first three days of the protests in Minsk, my friends and I brought water, food, medicine. Police threw grenades at us, sprayed gas. Once as six of us were riding in a car, we were stopped and they started to pull us out. Three friends were taken away, we still haven't found them. I was pulled out but not taken into a paddy wagon. For some reason, I was lucky.
Reaction of the authorities
Belarusian Interior Minister Yuryy Karayew described everything you have read about in this article as "injuries of random people". He apologised for that. As if, they "got into the crosshairs".
"In any mass clash, when group or mass violations of public order are curbed, it turns out that they affect those who specifically went for it and those who were nearby, did not leave on time or could not escape. As for these people, those who got into hot water, I, as commander, want to take responsibility and apologise to these people in a purely human way," Karayew said.
* - name changed
Oksana Rasulova, journalist
Source https://en.lb.ua/news/2020/08/15/8770_human_hunt_people_detained.html
_______________________________
During protests 2 people died. 200 were wounded. 7000 were detained and treated like the above. And this monster apologized...
Those in power who are reading this forum and seeing this, if you can help, please help these people. They went to peaceful porotest for their vote and were treated worse than in North Korean labour camp.
Please spread this!
![Voice of Enki [JG]](/data/avatars/m/0/84.jpg?1705131368){kind=avatar}
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