News on the topic: torture
12.05.2009 Democratic activist beaten for T-shirt with ‘Pahonia’ coat of arms
Hooligans beat the democratic activist Ales Tsialehin. The victim told RFE/RL he was walking with an entrepreneur for a meeting. Two unknown young men came up to them near the Kuntsaushchyna metro station and asked why he was wearing a T-shirt with Pahonia .
12.05.2009 Professor Andrei Kaliada beaten by Russian commando
A barbarous occurrence took place on 10 May in Minsk: a Russian special purpose troops ("spetsnaz") officer with 10 years of fighting experience in Chechnya cruelly beat up Professor Andrei Kaliada.
09.05.2009 Police beat up participants of 7 May action
Participants of the rally on 7 May were beaten even for a denial to be fingerprinted, though formally this procedure is voluntary.
07.05.2009 Action in the memory of Yury Zakharanka ends with mass detentions
On 7 May at 6 p.m. several hundred people came to an action of commemoration of the ex-minister of interior Yury Zakharanka who has been missing for ten years already. The people were holding the photos of Zakharanka and the photos of the political prisoners Mikalai Autukhovich, Uladzimir Asipenka and Yury Liavonau.
04.05.2009 Action of solidarity: day two
At 6 p.m. on 2 May about 40 activists of Young Front, Young Belarus, European Belarus and BPF Youth lined up in Kastrychnitskaya Square in Minsk with portraits of Mikalai Autukhovich in their hands and demanded that Autukhovich and other political prisoners were released from prison.
04.05.2009 On 1 May Minsk police disbanded action of solidarity with political prisoners
In Minsk riot policemen were beating up participants of the peaceful rally of solidarity with political prisoner Mikalai Autukhovich who had declared indefinite hunger strike. The rally took place on 1 May near the remand prison in Valadarski Street in Minsk.
14.04.2009 ‘Young Front’ activist Artsium Dubski beaten by riot police
The Young Front activist managed to send a letter from the pre-trial detention center. In this letter, published on the Young Front website, Artsiom Dubski says how the riot police beat him and his cell mates.
14.04.2009 Police cannot find the persons who beat Franak Viachorka
Franak Viachorka, forcefully drafted into the army, received a letter saying the police couldn’t find the person who injured the activist.
09.04.2009 Prosecutor’s office refuses to bring a criminal case on beating of participants of St.Valentine’s Day action
The prosecutors’ office of Savetski district of Minsk ‘does not consider’ beating up participants of the peaceful rally of young people in the capital on St. Valentine’s Day by riot policemen ‘to be a socially dangerous act’.
16.02.2009 HR Center Viasna issues statement on brutal dispersal of 14 February peaceful action
On 14 February 2008 the unregistered Young Front organization conducted a peaceful youth demonstration. In spite of the fact that the action was peaceful, the demonstrators were attacked by representatives of the Belarusian riot police, using violence and compliance weapons. As a result, dozens of citizens were beaten up. However, none of the participants of the action was detained, which indicates the deliberate character of the violent actions, aimed at intimidation and display of power by the Belarusian authorities. The violence used was demonstrative and deliberately excessive. It should be observed that the action was preceded by a series of searches at the private apartments of the Young Front members.
08.12.2008 Trial over Barazenka: policemen beat youth leader Andrei Kim
Policemen in mufti beat the youth leader Andrei Kim near Tsentralny district court of Minsk, where the political prisoner Alexander Barazenka was tried. Kim was beaten when Barazenka was being taken out of the court and the people who came to support him started chanting ‘Freedom!’ and ‘Long Live Belarus!’ Three policemen in mufti assaulted him.
10.11.2008 Saliahorsk: human rights activist Yana Paliakova is guarded to court by police
On 10 November in Salihorsk, a police officer came up to Yana Palyakova and ordered to follow him to the court.
06.11.2008 Participants of action against foreign travel restrictions are beaten by police
The leaders and activists of the Belarusian opposition who tried to bring address to the authorities of Belarus to the Internal Affairs Ministry and the General Prosecutor’s Office with a request to authorize their travelling outside Belarus were beaten up by policemen in mufti.
04.11.2008 Baranavichy: ‘Young Front’ activists are beaten on return from Dziady action
Activists of the Young Front Yury Bahdanovich and Siamion Bylinski were brutally beaten up after they returned to Baranavichy from the protest rally Dziady in Minsk.
11.10.2008 Salihorsk: police beat human rights activist
On 9 October in Salihorsk the human rights activist Yana Palyakova was beaten up by unknown people. She was beaten again at the police department. She said in an interview to RFE/RL she had been attacked at 5 in the evening.
