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

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.’