How they treat women detained at protests in Belarus.
Women who were detained told DW about beating and humiliation.
In Belarusian detention centers, there are still people detained at protests and those released from prisons report unprecedented police savagery.
About seven thousand people ended up behind the bars in the first several days of protests against the falsifications of the presidential election results that took place in Belarus on the 9th of August, 2020. Many of those people still stay in detention centers, and those released report unprecedented police savagery, endless abuse and beating. Dozens of injured people are still in hospitals. Nevertheless, the Deputy Interior Minister declared to journalists that ‘No abuse took place’. Released women told DW what was really going on behind the prison walls.
They beat those who failed National anthem singing
Elena Budeiko, the anesthesiologist-reanimatologist doctor at Minsk hospital for the infectious diseases of children, spent less than 24 hours behind the bars and is saying these hours were the most dreadful in her life. On the 11th of August, 2020, she and several volunteering health professionals were not far from the Riga department store. They were wearing white doctor’s coats with red crosses; they carried special bags with medicine with them. ‘We came to an agreement to remain neutral and provide medical help to both parties’, — Elena says.
When medical workers were moving toward the downtown, the armed men wearing military uniforms arrived. They ordered to get on the vans and drove the workers to Minsk Hero City obelisk. They jammed female workers in the police van, and the guy who helped carrying the medicine was left outside. Budeiko said, she could hear chilling yells; probably, the police beat the guy. Then they placed him separately. ‘Pavel is his name. We haven’t heard of him ever since’, — Elena says.
They brought medical workers to the police department of Tsentralnoye district. ‘We were allowed to walk with our heads bent down the ground and our arms behind our backs. We could stay thrusting our foreheads against the wall; they didn’t beat us though this was an exception. They poked the red crosses with their rubber batons and kept saying that we provided help to the armed rebels. ‘Turn to me, you animal! Your last name!’, — these were the kindest words they used to address me’, — the woman recalls.
Elena could see that men were lying in the yard with their arms and legs stretched, their faces down the ground; cries of despair sounded there.
The detained were suggested to sign the already filled protocols. They beat those who refused. The man who was doing the paperwork, threatened Budeiko: ‘If you don’t sign, we break your legs’.
After signing, women were staying in the corridor, their faces pressed against the wall. Men were lying outside; the police forced them to sing the national anthem of Belarus. If the guards didn’t like someone’s singing, they were beating them. People whom the police led to the building were beaten so severely that it was hard to see their faces.
‘I could hear one girl saying: ‘Don’t touch me’. And they answered: ‘And what do you do to me?’ When it came to us, the doctors, they kept saying that the bandages and ethanol we had in our bags were the ingredients to make the Molotov bomb. They threatened to ‘pin many crimes on us’, — Elena recalls. — In the morning, they led us for screening and started to threaten again. They kept saying that they would send us to Zhodino town, convict to 20 nights in prison and would not report to our families’.
Elena spent less than 24 hours at the police department, however she confesses that when she walked out, she was sobbing violently. Nevertheless, the woman says she will continue to help as a volunteer at the protests.
There was a train of ambulance cars at Okrestina
Olga Pavlova, a member of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya headquarter office, spent five nights behind the bars. The woman was detained at night, on the 10th of August, 2020, in Minsk, on Masherova avenue. Pavlova, a medical worker by training, was at the buffer area between the riot police and the protesters. She had a first aid kit in a backpack with her. When the police initiated an attack, people ran away and Olga kept staying at the same spot, her arms up. ‘Some policeman pushed me and I fell down. His pals set me on my feet, conveyed me to other policemen and they jammed me to the police van’, — Olga says. They transferred the woman to the detention center at the police department on Okrestina street.
‘They started beating the men as soon as we arrived. A Russian girl was detained with us; she was asking to call the ambassador. They took her to the next cell and beat. They said, she would never come back home’, — Pavlova says. According to her, there was a pair of guards who stood out in a crowd of the policemen for peculiar ferocity. These were a man with bright blue eyes and a short blonde woman called Kristina (other people kept in the Okrestina center mentioned her, too).
Pavlova was locked in a quad-cell where 36 persons altogether had been held in detention. When the detained asked to open the window, they poured two buckets of water on them instead. Water started evaporating, people were struggling for breath. Women were led outside to breathe late at night only. One detained woman suffered epilepsy, other was diabetic. As for Olga, she had rubber bullets and stun grenades wounds.
On the 10th of August, 2020, they started to interrogate for personal information; Olga provided her first and last names only. For 24 hours, the police tortured her. They forced her to her knees, twisted her arms, and threatened. ‘Smashing against the wall was just a mild punishment. They were beating the guys terribly and non-stop. They took one person at a time to the corridor, beat them to a pulp, took the beaten away and came for the next one. There was a train of ambulance cars at Okrestina’.
They also beat those who refused to sign the protocols. ‘I didn’t sign anything and they had no idea what to do with me, — the woman says. — An employee from the Moskovskoe police department arrived for the court, and he was shocked with what he had seen. He brought us a bag of dry provisions; we hadn’t eaten anything for two days. We used to drink tap water’.
In court, Olga told the police tortured the detained, and people didn’t get medical aid. And the judge answered: ‘It is not within my province’.
The information in Olga’s protocol was not accurate, and the personal data in the case (like birthdate, registration address and even photo) belonged to a different person bearing the same last name. However, it didn’t stop the judge from condemning Olga to 15 nights of administrative arrest at Zhodino prison. All in all, Pavlova spent five nights behind the bars. She was released on the 14th of August, 2020. There is no information on how many people are still languishing in prison.
