"You haven't had your balls crushed, have you? We'll come to the police station, and you'll find out what it is." A story of a former political prisoner
Former political prisoner Aliaksei (name changed) was detained in Minsk in 2021 for commenting on the Zeltser case. He fully served a year and a half in prison under Article 130 of the Criminal Code and was released. He served ten days for not reporting to the police station on time and decided to leave Belarus. Aliaksei told Viasna about being tortured during detention: his ear was torn and an officer forced him to drink from the toilet bowl after the former prisoner asked for water.
- An illustrative image. Photo: spring96.org
"I stop feeling afraid"
This is not our first interview with the former political prisoner. In our last conversation, when he was just released and was still in Belarus, he told us how the security services agents tore his ear during detention. But then he asked not to write about it.
"I gradually stop feeling afraid and I understand that everything needs to be spoken about. Staying silent means giving them carte blanche to torture."
Aliaksei was detained at his workplace by KGB and OMON officers.
"As soon as they took me out of the office, I got hit. They put me in a car, handcuffed my hands behind my back, and began to torture me. A riot policeman hit me in the face and threatened to break my nose. He kept telling me: "I'm not hitting you. I'm treating you well," and at that moment he was putting fingers under the clavicle bone and twisting the skin on my chest. He pulled my ear very hard and eventually tore it. It took several months to heal."
"You haven't had your balls crushed, have you? We'll come to the police station, and you'll find out what it is"
- An illustrative image. Photo: spring96.org
The security forces constantly tried to have a ”frank conversation" with Aliaksei, and they told him that they ostensibly knew everything about him, so that the man himself would tell them the reason for his detention.
"I realized that I was detained for the comment I wrote about the KGB officer who broke into Andrei Zeltser's apartment. I did not deny it. I immediately admitted that I really wrote it. In response, they started threatening me: "Haven't you had your balls crushed, have you? When we get to the police station, and you'll find out what it is." Upon arrival at the station, I was put on my knees in a corridor. I stood in that pose for about an hour."
Later the man was transferred to an office room, where he asked for a drink of water. A riot police officer took Aliaksei to the bathroom, bent his head to the toilet bowl and ordered him to drink from there. Aliaksei flatly refused and in the end the officer opened the tap with water for him, mockingly saying: "Here, drink. We're not some kind of fascists."
"I realized that I would not be left alone in this country"
- An illustrative image. Photo: spring96.org
The last straw in making the decision to leave was the administrative arrest of Aliaksei. He was supposed to report the police department regularly, but once he got the date wrong, for which he served 10 days of detention in Akrestsina.
"Instead of Monday, I came on Tuesday. A report was immediately drawn up on me and I was taken to Akrestsina."
Aliaksei says that he was put to the ”toilet cell" in the detention facility, because it was very dirty and stank unbearably. After the trial, he was transferred to the Center for Isolation of Offenders.
"When I got behind bars for the second time, it was no longer very shocking for me. But there I began to think that my persecution in Belarus would never end and what a fool I was not to leave earlier. I realized that I would not be left alone in this country."
Aliaksei has decided to leave Belarus and is now safe in one of the European countries.
