“Elegant Victory” over Anatol Liabedzka

22.10.2004.

According to Vadzim KAZNACHEYEW

According to the official sources, the “Parliamentary action and the nationwide referendum” were carried in complete conformity with Belarusian legislation. This is the conformity in which special police forces detained the head of United Civil Party Anatol Liabedzka and beat him.

No representatives of the opposition were elected to the Parliament, and Aliaksandr Lukashenka received one more “elegant” victory, allowing him to run for the third presidential term. The police won their elegant victory over Aliaksandr Liabedzka – now he is in the hospital with a head injury, broken ribs and haematoma of kidney. During the action at which Belarusian citizens protested against the shameless falsification of the election and the referendum, Anatol Liabedzka was seized on the stairs of the “Patio-Pizza” café, opposite the Central supermarket. They pulled him into the café and couldn’t manage with him for a long time (they put hand-cuffs on one hand only). They threw Liabedzka on the floor and all of them started kicking him with their feet. From time to time they put him up by hair and hit in the face and in the head. Then some seven or eight policemen with the commandant of Minsk special police forces Padabed at the head came. They twisted my arms, and took me up, so that my feet didn’t reach the ground, and Padabed hit me in the face for six or seven times with his palm. Then Liabedzka lost consciousness and resuscitated only in the police car.

It’s worth mentioning that the back door to the police colonel was opened to two female managers of the café. When the journalist Liubow Luniova started to reproach them for that, they answered that they executed their civil duty. Then she told all the present visitors of the cafe what happened and who was to blame. Many of the clients left the café and said they wouldn’t come there any more.