In Lukashenko’s torture prison: “It sounded like people were being burned alive”

The Okrestina prison in the Belarusian capital of Minsk is a symbol of the brutality of the Lukashenko regime. Here, opponents of the government are beaten, abused and tortured. In an NGO report, more than 100 former inmates describe the horror they experienced.

Around two years after the brutal crackdown on peaceful protests in Belarus, the International Committee to Investigate Torture issued a report published, in which abuses of detained demonstrators by security forces are described in detail. The 56-page document deals with cases of violence in the notorious Okrestina prison in Minsk during the first five days of protests against the rigged presidential elections on August 9, 2020. The events of those days were crucial for the further development of the country and also the whole Region. In response to reports of torture in Okrestina prison, even more people took to the streets, and the country did not rest for several months.

Two men showed their injuries after being released from Okrestina prison in August 2020.

(Photo: Tut.by)

From August 9 to 14, 2020, more than 3,000 people were “chased” through the Okrestina prison, which is designed for 110 people, the report says. Among them were minors, the elderly, people with disabilities and random passers-by. The detainees were subjected to degrading procedures and severe abuse, and were held in inhumane conditions in overcrowded cells without food or water for days. According to victims, up to 50 people were in a cell of four at the same time. According to the report, the beatings and torture were carried out by police, prison guards and medical personnel alike.

The document already gives indications of trends in the following years. For example, detainees who spoke Belarusian and those who wore tattoos or clothing bearing national symbolism were marked with paint by prison officials, according to witnesses and victims. The reason: They were then beaten much more brutally than other prisoners. The Belarusian language has been increasingly suppressed for several years. The national symbols, such as the white-red-white flag and the Pahonya coat of arms, which Lukashenko replaced as state symbols with slightly modified Soviet motifs as early as 1995, were classified as extremist. Anyone who wears these motifs in public risks imprisonment.

“Who paid you? Where are the 50 euros?”

The way officials treat Ukrainian citizens is also remarkable. Around 160,000 Ukrainians live in Belarus, some of whom were among those arrested, according to the report. According to witnesses, they were treated just as brutally. The security forces used the rhetoric of Russian propaganda, which they also used to justify the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022. “I heard some men say they were Ukrainians,” recalls a witness. The police officers always reacted in the same way: “Why did you come here? You ruined your country and now you want to ruin our country too! Do you want to organize a Maidan here too?” the security forces said, referring to the Euromaidan in Kiev in early 2014 The Russian government claims that the Euromaidan movement was a Western “financed” coup, thereby justifying the invasion of the country.

The leadership in Minsk made similar accusations against the Belarusian democratic movement. State media have vehemently claimed that participants in the summer 2020 protests were paid by Western states. The Belarusian officials used this narrative to abuse the detainees. “Some were beaten so badly they couldn’t get up, they were lying on the ground. Their bodies stopped responding to the beatings. Those who couldn’t walk were laughed at and mocked by the police, who kept asking, ‘Who did paid you? Where are the 50 euros?'”, a witness is quoted in the report.

The human rights activists’ report is based on the testimonies of 101 people who were in Okrestina prison at the time and were victims of torture. Accordingly, they submitted medical and other documents to support their statements.

Screams can be heard in the street

The Belarusian authorities denied any ill-treatment. Nevertheless, the population could already guess in the first few days what was happening behind the high walls of the prison. During the night of August 12-13, relatives recorded the sounds of incessant beatings and screams of detainees walking on the street in front of the prison listen were. The recordings clearly heard the voices of people screaming in pain and begging for mercy.

The newly arriving inmates were reportedly taken out of the prison vans in the prison courtyard and herded through lines of security guards while they were being beaten with batons. This practice is also on a secretly recorded Video, which was circulating on social media at the time. People were forced to kneel on the ground against a concrete wall in the prison yard. According to the report, the detainees had to hold out in this position for several hours. Meanwhile, the police officers continued to beat them and forced them to crawl on the asphalt, and they were not allowed to stand up.

For physical exams According to the report, the demonstrators should have undressed in front of a large number of other detainees. A female guard hit the undressed men in the testicles with a club, a witness recalls.

“You could hear the crunch of bones”

The beatings and mistreatment continued unabated even after the investigations. “People screamed constantly. Men in particular were hit so hard with clubs that you could hear the crunching of bones, the screaming was so loud that it sounded like people were being burned alive,” a witness is quoted in the report .

“One of the men was beaten until he wet his blood. The police officers shouted at him to wipe up the urine and blood from the floor. The man cried and said he had nothing to wipe up as he was naked. Then the officers continued the beating and yelled for him to wipe it up with his body,” says one woman, describing a scene she says she witnessed.

Police officers take injured people out of ambulances

“A deaf man was beaten up in front of me because he couldn’t answer questions,” says another former prisoner. “One man had a scalped head – the police cut off his hair and the skin on his head. Blood was oozing out, it was a fresh wound.” According to the report, the detained demonstrators did not receive medical aid. Officials only called doctors in emergencies. However, the security forces did not allow the paramedics to take the injured to hospitals. The police literally took people out of ambulances and sent them back to cells, the report said. Several people died behind bars under unclear circumstances. However, no criminal proceedings or investigations were initiated against the officials.

With the help of the people interviewed, the human rights activists were able to identify 13 people who are said to have been involved in the abuse of prisoners in the Okrestina prison. The identification of those involved is not yet complete, the activists explain. Based on numerous testimonies, the human rights activists also come to the conclusion that the conditions of detention for political prisoners have hardly changed since August 2020. In Okrestina, as in other prisons, regime critics continue to be ill-treated and tortured.

The wave of arrests against the participants in the protests two and a half years ago continues unhindered. Secret service employees evaluate photos and videos of the protests and use face recognition tools to identify the demonstrators. Anyone who has taken part in a demo even once can expect to be picked up by uniformed men at any time.


source site-34