Special Police Forces Tortured Participants of Protests Actions of 18-19 October

22.10.2004.

According to the testimony of the detained participation of the protest action of 19 October Yaraslaw Navumenka, in the police busses protestors were “thrown down on the floor and beaten”. He said it at the trial, but the judge of Minsk Leninski Court Tserashkova paid no attention to the fact of tortures and sentenced him to 3 days of arrest. Another detainee, student of one of Minsk higher educational establishments, stated at trial that in the buss they were thrown on the floor and “walked on”. This fact didn’t interest the judges either. The lawyer of the Human Rights Center “Viasna”, who attended the trials as the representative of the detainees, emphasizes that the judges refused to call witnesses of the defendants.

-- We will register the facts of tortures, -- says Valiantsin Stefanovich. – We will try to help people in writing complaints to prosecutor’s offices. We will demand check-ups of these facts, identification of the persons who dealt with it and bringing of criminal cases against them. Besides, the names of these persons will be given wide publicity and transferred to the UN Committee “Against Tortures”.

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