« Around us were horrific beatings. Everywhere we heard blows, shouts, and screams. »
After a rigged election in Belarus Sunday, protesters turned out in the streets and faced off with police for several nights. Nearly 7,000 people were arrested and now, under international pressure, many of those people are being released. They describe beatings and torture while they were detained and many have the bruises to prove it: Released prisoners shared pictures showing their bruised and swollen bodies, including injuries to backs and buttocks that they alleged were caused by police. Amnesty International said detainees described being stripped naked, beaten and threatened with rape. “Former detainees told us that detention centres have become torture chambers, where protesters are forced to lie in the dirt while police kick and beat them with truncheons,” said Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. A 16-year-old who was arrested during the protests while crossing a street said his family figured out where he was being held and came to demand his release. Instead, the police arrested them as well: “The police said if they were given an order to kill us, they would kill us all without any hesitation,” Vitushka told BuzzFeed News. “They were shouting, ‘Oh yeah, do you need your democracy now?’” “They were trying to scare people so they wouldn’t take part in any protests,” he added. A Russian journalist who was arrested during the sweep wrote a long account of his detention and what he saw: The guy in front of me had his head slammed into the door frame of the police building on purpose.
