Participant of 25 March action has broken rib

Doctors of Minsk hospital #3 diagnosed Andrei Babitski, activist of the civil campaign European Belarus, with ‘closed displaced fracture of eighth rib’. The youth activist and dozens of other participants of the demonstration on 25 March were beaten up brutally by riot policemen. Emergency brigade, called to the Savetski district police department, refused to help the oppositionist.

‘An emergency doctor examined me in the police department and said I did not need any medical help. I complained I felt severe pain when breathing in, but he didn’t render help and refused to take me to hospital for an x-ray to be made. I asked him to say his name, but he didn’t say. I know it was the brigade #955.

After the trial, where I was fined, I myself took an emergency to get to a hospital. They took me to hospital, I had an x-ray made and they told me to wait a little. Then not a traumatic surgeon, but a nurse came up to me, she was angry and said: ‘You have nothing!’. She didn’t even show a snap to me. I said I felt pain, so there must be a reason for it. She called a surgeon and he said I had nothing serious, if I wanted medical care to be rendered, I should have gone to a hospital of my district. I said I lived in another town. ‘So go there’, he answered. But it continued to pain, and finally I went to Minsk policlinic #3,’ Andrei Babitski said to the Charter’97 press center.

Andrei Babitski reminds how his rib was fractured by riot police on 25 March:

‘They didn’t let us go to Yakub Kolas Square. When many people gathered, riot policemen told us: go to Peramohi Square and use metro to get to Academy of Science. But the road to Peramohi Square was blocked! We found ourselves in a circle. People were pushed, they began to fall down and panic. People said it looked like tragedy on Niamiha. Then riot policemen formed a corridor and began to drag us and pack into a bus. People in civvies showed whom riot policemen needed to detain.

Riot policemen beat us in the bus. They made us knee, keep head down and clasp hand behind the head. I remember hit at ribs. I heard that they beat everyone who let arms down, or raised the head.

When we came we saw many of us were beaten up, a lad had his arm seriously injured, it hung loose, he couldn’t move it. Someone had a torn ear...’