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  • “I will murder you. I can do it today.” Journalists from Babruysk Clobbered and Tortured

    Representatives of law-enforcement agencies brutally detained four independent journalists in Babruysk (Mahilou region) on August 10, 2020.

    Three of them were detained next to the local pretrial detention center, where the relatives of the previously locked up Babruysk dwellers gathered and waited for court decisions.

    The fourth journalist was taken into custody at his wife’s work place. 

    A lot of jour­nal­ists from the city media were present near the pre­tri­al deten­tion cen­ter at 4.30 p.m. on that day. They were wait­ing for the devel­op­ment of events. All of a sud­den a bus with riot police arrived. The police­men put all the men on the ground with their faces down and start­ed beat­ing them.  Andrei Malakhau, Deputy Head of Depart­ment of Inter­nal Affairs of Babruysk Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee and Сhief of Pub­lic Secu­ri­ty Police man­aged the deten­tions. More­over, he per­son­al­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in beat­ings of jour­nal­ists and oth­er peo­ple.

    Then, all the present men were forced to stand fac­ing a wall, keep­ing their hands behind their heads. And they were beat­en hard.

    The jour­nal­ists Yauhien Hla­holeu-Vaskovich and Yauhien Yushk­ous­ki were in the group of arbi­trar­i­ly detained peo­ple. They were con­voyed to the remand cen­ter No.5.

    The tri­als were held on the fol­low­ing day. Con­se­quent­ly, both jour­nal­ists were charged with par­tic­i­pa­tion in the unau­tho­rized mass event in accor­dance with arti­cle 23.34 of Belarus Code of Admin­is­tra­tive Offense.

    A cor­re­spon­dent of ‘Babruys­ki Kury­er’ on-line news­pa­per Yauhien Hla­holeu-Vaskovich was arrest­ed for 12 days. Accord­ing to the jour­nal­ists, the tri­als resem­bled a con­vey­or. The jour­nal­ist wasn’t pro­vid­ed with an oppor­tu­ni­ty to sign a con­tract with an attor­ney. Report­ed­ly, the judge wasn’t inter­est­ed in the evi­dence, shared by the peo­ple on tri­al. She sim­ply announced fines and terms of arrest.  

    Mr. Hla­holeu-Vaskovich not­ed that in the course of his deten­tion Andrei Malakhau, Deputy Head of Depart­ment of Inter­nal Affairs of Babruysk Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee lit­er­al­ly ‘beat up’ his legs.

    The reporter wasn’t beat­en in the remand cen­ter. He was trans­ferred from it to the pre­tri­al deten­tion cen­ter lat­er on and spent 8 days out of 12 days of his term of arrest behind bars. The jour­nal­ist was released from cus­tody on August 18.

    A free­lance jour­nal­ist Yauhien Yushk­ous­ki, who col­lab­o­rates with the Media IQ project, was arrest­ed by court deci­sion for two days. He was kept behind bars in the local remand cen­ter. Like oth­er col­leagues, the jour­nal­ist was charged with par­tic­i­pa­tion in the unau­tho­rized mass event.  Accord­ing to Mr. Yushk­ous­ki, he didn’t face vio­lence or humil­i­a­tion in deten­tion.

    The journalist’s moth­er Hali­na Yushk­ouskaya wit­nessed her son’s deten­tion. She filed a com­plaint against Andrei Malakhau’s and riot police actions to the law-enforce­ment author­i­ties on the fol­low­ing day. A check is being con­duct­ed, fol­low­ing the claim.

    A jour­nal­ist Mary­na Mauchana­va was also detained at the pre­tri­al deten­tion cen­ter on August 10, 2020. She coop­er­ates with the ‘Babruys­ki Kury­er’ online news­pa­per and ‘Bel­sat’ TV chan­nel. Accord­ing to her, as soon as the men were detained by riot police, anoth­er bus with riot police­men came to detain her. She was pushed with the use of force to enter the bus.

    ‘When I was enter­ing the bus, some­one hit me with a baton between my legs. When I won­dered by what right they were beat­ing me, a riot police offi­cer cursed at me, look­ing straight in my eyes and ordered me to shut up in order not to make it worse. Then he shout­ed at me, “I will mur­der you. I can do it today.” The deten­tion looked like a per­son­al act of revenge for my jour­nal­ist work. They remind­ed me a num­ber of my reports and not­ed that I wrote neg­a­tive­ly about police all the time. When I asked them to release me, since I have a small child at home, they told me not to wor­ry, since the child might be tak­en to an orphan­age.’

    The jour­nal­ist was tak­en to the Lenin­s­ki City Dis­trict Depart­ment of Inter­nal Affairs in Babruysk. The police start­ed fill­ing a pro­to­col about the journalist’s alleged par­tic­i­pa­tion in the unau­tho­rized mass event. How­ev­er, as soon as Andrei Pier­aplauchanka, Chief of Lenin­s­ki City Dis­trict Depart­ment of Inter­nal Affairs of Babruysk came to the room, he apol­o­gized to Ms. Mauchana­va, say­ing that her jour­nal­ist sta­tus had been con­firmed, and let her go.

    A his­to­ri­an, a jour­nal­ist and a BAJ mem­ber Ales Chy­hir was detained in anoth­er place on the same day. He used to be a deputy of Babruysk City Coun­cil in the past.

    The jour­nal­ist was going to meet his wife from her place of work at around 8.30 pm and he filmed how riot police detained a guy in the open air cafe with the use of bru­tal force. On enter­ing the drug store, where the journalist’s wife worked, the jour­nal­ist and his wife were detained by riot police with the use of phys­i­cal vio­lence, too.

    Con­se­quent­ly, the jour­nal­ist was thrown to a police van, where the riot police offi­cers con­tin­ued beat­ing him black and blue. As soon as they reached a dis­trict police depart­ment, one of police offi­cers dragged the jour­nal­ist out of the bus and promised to break his arms. The cru­el beat­ing con­tin­ued in the police depart­ment. Four – five police offi­cers were beat­ing the reporter cru­el­ly togeth­er, when he was lying on the floor. The police offi­cers were grin­ning and laugh­ing as if enjoy­ing the process of beat­ing the defense­less jour­nal­ist, 48, who is father of three chil­dren and a pro­fes­sion­al reporter with 29 years of work expe­ri­ence. Accord­ing to Mr Chy­hir he was tor­tured cru­el­ly by the peo­ple, who lived in his city. It was hor­ri­fy­ing for him to feel that these neigh­bors were real sadists, enjoy­ing his tor­tures and humil­i­a­tion. The reporter under­scored that the tor­tures were hailed by female police offi­cers, who were present in the same room.

    Accord­ing to the peak of tor­tures came at the moment, when the police offi­cers start­ed humil­i­at­ing the jour­nal­ist, say­ing that they were going to uri­nate on him in turn.

    Mr. Chy­hir was sen­tenced to 15 days of admin­is­tra­tive arrest for the alleged par­tic­i­pa­tion in the unau­tho­rized mass event (arti­cle 23.34 of Belarus Code of Admin­is­tra­tive Offense). How­ev­er, he spent only 6 days in cus­tody.

    The jour­nal­ist told about inhu­mane con­di­tions in jail. ‘It was dirty in the cells with bird drop­pings on the floor. There was no soap, no toi­let paper. We were sleep­ing on very dirty mat­tress­es. The blan­kets were full of sand drop­ping out of them. Two spoons of rice were giv­en for break­fast. We were prac­ti­cal­ly not fed.’

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