Oppositionist told that guards humiliate women in detention facilities

The chairman of the Brest city branch of the Belarusian Social Democratic party (Hramada) Ana Kanyus has lodged a complaint against the head of the police department of Leninski district of Brest for her incarceration conditions of the temporary detention facility of that police department.

As the BelaPAN was informed by the human rights activist Raman Kislyak, the activist was placed to the temporary detention facility on March 18-23, 2006. Together with her party colleagues she was detained on March 18 by policemen and arrested for 5 days for an administrative violation.

A. Kanyus offers facts which to her mind demonstrate that the conditions in the temporary detention facility are improper. She states that in the detention facility where only male officers she was discriminated as a woman. In particular, male officers watched her through an eyehole, A. Kanyus said. Male officers also observed female prisoners when they were taking a shower.

“It is the forth complaint from women this year that they were discriminated in that prison,” R. Kislyak noted. As said by him, such complaints have become a part of the campaign of human rights started in autumn 2007. Its aim is to bring conditions of Brest temporary detention facilities in line with the Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The human rights activist underlined that in line with the law citizens can lodge complaints to state institutions not later than three years after the violation of their rights or from the day they learned about such violation.