News on the topic: torture
15.12.2020 Amnesty International: Tortured detainee denied medical care
Viachaslau Rahashchuk is a taxi driver from the Belarusian city of Pinsk who was arbitrarily detained in 10 August and remains behind bars. He is in need of urgent medical treatment due to injuries he sustained from being tortured while in detention.
14.12.2020 Violent protest dispersion resulted in a broken arm and a night at the detention center. Survivor stories
My knee was seriously injured, and in general the right side of my body was just smashed. There was a real psychopath among the riot policemen. When he detained me, he was on my right side, and the other riot policeman was on my left. While my left side was injured, but not critically, my right side was just smashed.
11.12.2020 "We felt like we were chickens brought to a cage with tigers." Survivor stories
The riot police came out of the road police car. They poked their shotguns into our windows and told us to get out. We did. They put us on our knees and asked, 'Do you want change?' They hit us on the head with batons.
09.12.2020 New report on post-election protests presented in Minsk. Full English text
A coalition of Belarusian human rights defenders presented today a report entitled “Belarus. August 2020: “Justice” for Protesters.” It highlights violations of the standards of a fair trial after tens of thousands of peaceful demonstrators protested the rigged presidential election and thousands were detained en masse and were convicted in August 2020.
07.12.2020 "Let's take him to the police van, let the guys have fun." Survivor stories
I was quite brutally detained. They immediately grabbed my phone because I was in the middle of a conversation. They said a few words and put me on the ground or my knees, I do not remember that for sure. And then the beatings started.
04.12.2020 "We brought you to the execution, guys." Survivor stories
We ran up to the third floor crouched and were beaten with batons along the way. They put people in cells in threes. Our cell was meant for six people. After a while, there were 32 men in that cell.
02.12.2020 A bartender talks about his 3-day arrest. Survivor stories
In 15 minutes, a police van arrived. They took us out of the bus, put us against the wall, told us to raise our hands above our heads and stand like that. A very aggressive riot policeman came out of the police van and started swearing and throwing detainees into the vehicle.
30.11.2020 "A riot policeman sat on me in the police van and exclaimed: 'Look at my nice chair!'" Survivor stories
Andrei Viarshenia was brutally pulled out of his car by riot policemen on the night of August 11, when he was driving his friends home past the Riga shopping center. He was being beaten all the way to the detention center and after, until he lost consciousness. The man shared his detention story with "Viasna".
25.11.2020 "They threw my skateboard away and told me I feigned a broken arm." Survivor stories
Ivan told "Viasna" the details of what happened: during the detention, his arm was broken and no ambulance was called, even when he reported a heart condition. The doctor at Žodzina detention center said that his arm was fine because it had not swollen up. The guy received medical attendance only after the trial.
23.11.2020 "I had to take down my pants and stand in my underwear in the middle of the hall." Survivor stories
"Nothing was going on, no chains of solidarity or protests. Suddenly they ran up to me, lowered my head, put me on a parapet, and then loaded me into a minibus. I can hardly call it detention, it was rather kidnapping.”
19.11.2020 Arrested anarchist suffers Chechnya-style torture, lawyer says
Mikalai Dziadok, blogger and journalist of the Novy Chas weekly, who describes himself as an anarchist, was arrested on November 12 near the city of Salihorsk, 120 km south of Minsk. A video released by the Interior Ministry the following day shows the humiliated and beaten activist confessing to “plotting to overthrow the government.”
18.11.2020 "Riot policeman took another baton and said: 'I wanted to be a drummer all my life.'" Survivor stories
Around 9 pm on August 10, 29-year-old Minsk resident Anton [name changed – editor's note] was seeing his friend home. The couple were in a tram when five masked riot policemen ran inside.
16.11.2020 "They broke my ribs and found me guilty." Survivor stories
We were sitting with heads lowered and hands behind our heads. It seemed like I had got into some movie. The riot policemen were rudely speaking to us all the time. They said: 'So you want freedom? Do you need change? Do you lack anything? We will show you another life now!'
16.11.2020 Position of Belarusian human rights organizations on the death of Raman Bandarenka
Numerous video footage of the incident and testimonies by eyewitnesses allow us to conclude that officers of special units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus were involved in the crime with a high degree of probability.
13.11.2020 "When they looked at my ID, the beating became softer." Survivor stories
Minsk resident Piotr Kiryk was detained at about midnight on August 12 when he was getting off a bus with a friend (between Malinaŭka and Piatroŭščyna metro stations). The boy was 16 years old (17 at the moment), but this did not stop the riot police from using force against him.
