Secret Services Detained and Beaten Up Belarusian Citizens During G8 Summit

18.07.2006.

Six citizens of Belarus, detained for the second time at about 11 a.m. on July 16 in St. Petersburg during G8 summit, were released at about 9 p.m. on the same day. As PRIMA-News reporter was told by an activist of a youth resistance group Bunt Svyatlana Stankevich, Russian and Belarusian secret service were beating up detainees, and threatened girls by a rape.

Ten young activists were heading for a hotel Primorskaya in St. Petersburg, where journalists covering the summit stayed. Young people planned to hold a press conference on situation in Belarus for the journalists who had arrived to the summit. However special services put an end to dissemination of unwanted information. Two days before Petersburg policemen detained Belarusian oppositionists together with Russian young democratic activists during their attempt to hold a joint protest.

According to information received from representatives of the Belarusian Bunt and Russian Oborona, the Belarusian citizens detained for a second time, Belarusian citizens were handcuffed and interrogated without drawing up a protocol. As said by S. Stankevich, each detainee was interrogated by four representatives of law-enforcing agencies in mufti, who hadnt presented themselves. They intimidated detainees. The citizens of Belarus stayed in the police department number 37 all the time, but policemen denied that fact and stated that they do not have information about the detained citizens of Belarus.

As said by eye-witnesses, activists were released with traces of battery. They told that during detention they were knocked to the ground. Some of them were beaten. Then they were handcuffed, though they hadnt done anything illegal. They have spent 10 hours in the police department. They were brutally beaten up, girls were threatened by a rape. One of the detained women was told that their call is enough to cause serious problems to her son. As said by detainees, officers of the Belarusian KGB took part in the humiliation of the arrested. Despite of a call to the Belarusian Embassy in Moscow, diplomatic representatives of Belarus had not reacted to the arrests of Belarusian citizens in any way.
Source: www.charter97.org