Police raid LGBT parties
In the night of
12-13 January the police raided an LGBT-party of the human rights
project "GayBelarus" in the "21st century" club
in Vitsebsk. At about 0.20 a.m. riot police assaulted the club. All
participants of the party were lined up facing the wall – males on
one side of the corridor, females – on the other.
All of
them were shot on video and were forced to tell their personal
information.
There were about 60 people in the club. The
police failed to give precise reasoning for the raid, saying they
were looking for some people who evaded from military service, or for
some drugs. However, they kept asking questions which had no
relations to the army and drugs – what were the people doing in the
club, or how they found about the party.
Having put down
everybody's personal data, the police went away. No detentions were
conducted. Bear in mind that the day before, on Friday, analogical
raid was conducted in the Minsk gay-club 6A. There were about 100
people there, and the police were allegedly looking for a
criminal.
gaybelarus.by