Salihorsk: police beat human rights activist

11.10.2008. Tags: Kazulin, beating, human rights defenders, elections-2008.
Source: Charter`97.

On 9 October in Salihorsk the human rights activist Yana Palyakova was beaten up by unknown people. She was beaten again at the police department. She said in an interview to RFE/RL she had been attacked at 5 in the evening.

‘Someone came up to me, hit me at the back of the head and said: ‘If you, bitch, don’t shut up, it is the last warning!’ I wear a plait, and he snatched it and hit my head on the doors or a jamb, or anything else, Yana Palyakova tells.

The human rights told that she called an emergency ambulance and the police from the house. She received medical care at an emergency station, after that she waited for the police for a long time. From the emergency station she was taken to a police department to write a complaint on the attack.

Yana Palyakova said she felt bad at the police department. When she tried to go outside, she felt a blow.

‘They seized me by my sweater and pushed, I fell down to the floor. I sat and couldn’t stand up. My tailbone was aching, my leg pains even now, I can’t stand on it,’ Palyakova told.

It should be reminded that Yana Palyakova was detained in Salihorsk on 30 August. According to her, people in civvies and a district policeman offered to her to sign some documents. When the woman took them to read, she was hit on her hands, and then on her legs. Doctors have documented bruises.

During the elections to the House of Representatives Yana Paliakova gathered signatures for Volha Kazulina. Human rights activists think militiamen tried to intimidate her in such a way.

The woman is sure that the aim of the attack was final intimidation of her, for her to stop her activity and not complain at the actions of the local policemen. It is revenge for my complaining against a policeman's actions,' Yana Paliakova says.