"The whole floor was covered in my blood." Former detainee speaks of torture

In Belarus, daily detentions, torture, and beatings on political grounds have been going on for over two years. Unbearable conditions are created for dissidents in the Minsk temporary detention center (TDC), where they can be kept for months without hygiene items or a change of clothes. A Minsk resident told Viasna about the two-hour torture and beatings by the officers of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption (rus. GUBOPiK), the nurse's response to his broken finger, and the detention conditions in TDC in July this year.

"You're at GUBOPiK, boy, you're screwed."

Anton [name changed for security reasons] was detained in July this year at his workplace. Three plain-clothed police officers appeared and ordered him to follow them. They did not introduce themselves but said they were from the police. The guy asked to specify the department they belonged to, but he was told that if he continued in the same vein, "they would take out their duty weapons and shoot him in the knee."

Anton's phone was immediately seized and he was told to get ready to be convoyed. While one of the officers was waiting for him, the young man managed to leave a note to his colleagues informing them of the arrest and asking them to pass that on to his parents. The officers then escorted him to the staff car.

“Immediately after I got into the car, they started hitting me. The man in the front passenger seat turned around and tased me in the legs and ribs. As they explained, he did it because I was showing off. They said, 'When three guys of athletic build approach you, it's either "sporty" guys who will kick the shit out of you or cops who will kick the shit out of you.'

The car started, and they asked to unlock my phone screen. I said I didn't remember the password: "You've knocked everything out of me." They started beating me again for that. Three more unsuccessful attempts were made to retrieve the password, and I got a mighty "cashback" for refusing.

They told me, 'You'll get to GUBOPiK headquarters and you are going to sing a different tune. You're at GUBOPiK, boy, you're screwed.’”

"A minute-long taser discharge burnt my side"

As a result, Anton was brought to the backyard of GUBOPiK headquarters, where he was dragged out of the car and beatings continued.

“They took me into the building, I was already handcuffed at the time. They guided me down the corridor and pushed me against the walls, I would fall, they would beat me, lift me and guide me further.

A sharp turn – and I was thrown into an office. One of the officers grabbed me from behind by the handcuff chain and the other – by my legs. They threw me into the office like a sack of garbage. The three of them started beating me again on the pretext that I was acting up. They said it was unacceptable to talk to law enforcement officers like that and I had to follow all their instructions.

In the office, they beat me for a long time, without asking anything, just to hit me. They also got tasers, and at times I got shocked on the sides. They would hit my legs, buttocks, back, and arms. They grabbed my head and hit it against the floor. I got hit in the head, in the face.

Then they started demanding the screen-lock password to the phone. I gave it. They accessed the phone and started asking for the Telegram password. That one I refused to give, so they kept hitting me.

Then they put me on the “rack”, but that was not enough and they decided to experiment: while I was racked, a minute-long taser discharge burnt my side, and at the same time, the enforcer who was holding me by the handcuff chain twisting my shoulders decided to twist the cuffs clockwise and anti-clockwise, so that the shoulders would twist even more. After that, they threw me down and said, 'Ew, fuck, you smell of burnt skin. Open a window, it's fucking tiring.'"

"They threw two wet wipes so I could wipe my blood on the floor."

The survivor pointed out that while the law enforcers were beating him, other staff members came in and out of the office. A person could enter the office, put some papers on the table, kick him several times, and leave.

“I gave them the password to sign in to Telegram, but when it came to the 'two-factor authentication' password, I would refuse again and pretended I did not remember it. They put me on the 'rack' again, threatened to beat me even harder and bring dildos from the next office. I also saw a gas mask on the shelf that must have been used for the 'elephant' torture technique.

I told them convincingly, and they believed that I had just forgotten my second Telegram password and they got off my back. They asked me what my friends, parents, acquaintances, and girlfriend were engaged in. All these questions were followed by blows. I tried to answer by combining half-truths and half-lies.

The beatings went on for quite a long time – about two hours. At one point they left me lying down. Now and then I felt truncheon blows – just in case, so that I would not relax.

By that point, the entire floor was covered with my blood. One officer told me that he hated the smell of blood because it has an unpleasant metal scent. So they threw me two wet tissues to wipe the blood. I wiped the floor, and they had me seated. Again, I was slapped and received all sorts of blows. At that point, I was no longer hit with a truncheon, as I clearly had a concussion and was staggering in the squatting position. However, they tased me a few more times."

"In between bleedings from my chin, they recorded a video with me."

After that, Anton notes, they decided to play "good cops". They said that should he have just answered their questions, he wouldn't have been beaten. They needed to record a "repentant video", but before that, they decided to have him "wash his face, because he looked dirty".

“In the toilet, I saw that the only spot I didn't have blood on was my right eye. Everything else was covered in blood. I washed my face and realized that my chin had been cut and blood was gushing from there. There was a small cut on my eyebrow. Blood also flew like water from my nose and mouth. I managed to stop it and was taken to shoot the video. In between bleedings from my chin, they recorded a video with me.”

The words were read out to Anton: the speech was dictated in five words at a time, and he had to repeat them. As the guy points out, the security forces edited the video well, so it's almost impossible to see the cuts. They dictated a confession in participation in mass protests in August 2020, which could serve as a ground for starting a criminal case. But on camera, he managed to avoid incriminating himself.

A GUBOPiK officer stole 200 rubles from his wallet and a Zippo lighter

After the video was recorded, Anton was brought back to the office where they started checking his personal belongings and wallet.

“A Zippo lighter was taken out of my pocket. An officer looked at it and said, ‘It’s a nice lighter, I’ve always wanted it, I’ll hold on to it and you can have it back later.’ They also seized some documents. Then they opened my wallet, I remember there were about 200 rubles in it. One of them took it out, put it in his pocket, and said, 'Shit, you don't have any money.'”

After that, the enforcer who tortured Anton began to ask about his life, how people treated him, and whether he was paid enough at work.

In the end, the young man was taken to the Frunzenski District Police Department for drawing up a report. For the night before the trial, he was taken to a holding cell and managed to sleep.

“I lied down because I was not able to sit, talk, or move. Around 10 p.m. my family passed me a care package. I was in no condition to see what was there, so I only found it out 30 days later.”

The nurse did not care about the broken finger

The following day, Anton went on trial. He was found guilty of "distribution of extremist content" under Article 19.11 of the Administrative Offenses Code and sentenced to 11 days in detention. He served his term in Minsk TDC.

“There were 18 people in a four-bed cell. Sometimes the number rose to 20 inmates. We found a way to sleep there, but the constant light and frisks... It was very stuffy in the cell. Sitting was impossible during the day, but it was easier at night. We had a window in the cell that could be opened one centimeter. To open it, we took apart a whisk broom and used a straw to push it up. One straw did not last long, so at times we would run out of brooms.

The story that made me smile for the first time in three days, was my walking into the 'pressure house.’ The cell door opened, they shoved me in, the door closed behind me, and I saw 17 half-naked men standing in a circle and praying.

I sat on the bench and stared at them. A fellow inmate looked out and said, ‘Oh, the new guy. Well, sit there, we’re praying. It’s all right, we’re not a cult. We just had a Protestant clergyman housed here before.’

At the GUBOPiK headquarters, they drew marks on me, wrote Z and V letters all over my chest, and crossed out my tattoos. When I entered the cell, I started washing my face. The cellmates helped me. My right hand was swollen. One of my cellmates was a plastic surgeon or something. He looked at my hand, grabbed my little finger, and started moving it up and down. It turned out, I had a fracture. The next day I told the nurse about it. She looked and said, 'Yeah, probably a fracture,' and just walked away. We called her Dr. Death. The next day I told her again, ‘Are we going to do anything about the fracture?’ She looked at me like I was crazy and said, ‘I don’t give a fuck about you. I’m not going to do anything. At most, I can give you painkillers.’ Now I’m not perfectly healed, but I’m fine. That’s why the medical care there is a mess.”

Anton recalls that at one point everyone in the cell caught the flu. Once the medical staff learned that everyone in the cell was sick, they said there were no antipyretic pills, which were never in short supply. The only medicines they had were recovered carbon and iodine.

"At boot camp, we only watched videos, and I wonder how it is in real life."

After the first detention term was over, Anton was rearrested: they started releasing him, but when he got his things, he noticed that a police officer was already waiting for him. As a result, the duty officer came up, twisted Anton’s hands, handcuffed him, and said: "This is the procedure.”

“I was not told until last that a new report would be drawn up on me. I was told that they were taking me to a talk with the chief of Frunzenski District Police. We were about to go out, but it turned out that my family was waiting outside the gate to pick me up.

When the police found out about it, we didn't leave through the normal exit but waited for the service car to come inside. In 10 minutes it arrived, and for two seconds I saw my family when we were departing. I let them know with a gesture that apparently, I wouldn’t be released that day. We drove to the police department.

I had a funny conversation with the precinct officer there. He looked like a 2022 police academy grad. A guy with kind eyes. I was talking to him, but my eyes were staring at the sky because I hadn’t seen it for a long time.

The police officer asked me how I was detained and what special means were used. I said they used means of restraint, I had no complaints. He asked if authorized or unauthorized means were used during my interrogation. I turned to him and said, ‘You are asking a tortured person about how he was tortured and how it was on a 1-10 scale.’

He said, ‘No, it’s just that at boot camp, we only watched videos, and I wonder how it is in real life.’ He sounded like a crank.”

Anton was again charged under Article 19.1 of the Administrative Offences Code for "disorderly conduct", and a day later the judge imposed another detention on him. By the end of the second term, all traces of torture and beating were gone. At the end of the first detention, there were still bruises on his legs and taser discharge traces.

A guy got shocked 146 times for 146 tattoos

As the former detainee noted, from care packages, only medications are given to an inmate. At the same time, one has to ask the nurse for them every morning. If a person has a chronic disease, a tablet is given to him every morning.

At the time of the detention, Anton was housed with a guy who had his wedding scheduled for the day after the arrest.

“Aleh was a ray of light in our cell. That was the person who lifted the spirits. We were playing Mafia there, and he was one of the organizers. He was the moral support of our pressure house. He has a terrible story because he got beaten up for every tattoo he has.”

Moreover, Anton spent some time with former political prisoners Ihar Bantsar and Ihar Khmara.

According to him, everyone is beaten during detention. After the first detention, many are re-arrested for new “infringements” and returned to TDC for a few more weeks or even months.

“A man from my cell had a mother who was held in the opposite cell. At the age of 18-19, he worked for a month or two in some department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He was detained by the GUBOPiK. But he was beaten up twice as bad as I was because they thought he was a traitor. He was beaten unconscious.

The other guy had tattoos, the enforcers counted them and came up with 146. He was shocked with a taser 146 times.

They went to one guy’s house and found a motorcycle helmet. They put it on him and made him walk around while they hit the helmet with batons.

People there often break down. In one cell, a man was acting up after lights out. He was very loud, so a guard came up to him and said, ‘Should I calm you down by taking you out to the exercise yard to sleep?’ The guy picked up the idea and for 10 minutes shouted through the feeder, ‘Take me out into the yard.’ He had such a scary, frightening voice that no one could sleep after that. He would shout, ‘Take me out to the yard, I can’t stay here any longer, I’m going to die here.’ Women were housed in the opposite cell, and they often had nervous breakdowns."

According to Anton, the law enforcers beat much harder for tattoos. There are videos on the security forces' Telegram channels in which people say that after they were detained they redid their tattoos, changing the "extremist" inscriptions and symbols. Anton was also told that he had to "redo" his tattoos and then come to the police department to show the results. The threats from the law enforcement officers forced the young man to leave Belarus and he is safe now.