Police with machine guns took journalist and human rights defender Valery Shchukin to a desolate place

Policemen with machine guns transported the well-known human rights activist to a deserted district of Minsk.

On 8 July in the evening 69-year-old human rights activist Valery Shchukin was to be released from the detention center in Akrestsin Street in Minsk after a 5 days of arrest. He was detained on 3 July in Minsk on Pryvakzalnaya Square during a silent protest rally. Not long before his term finished, the persons in police uniform with machine guns took him into a deserted district of the city and left there.

Shchukin informed that his term of imprisonment was to expire at 7.35 p.m. “About 20 minutes earlier than that I was asked to leave the cell and take my things. It is a usual procedure before release. I was given back my phone, and as it turned out, two persons with machine guns were waiting for me, and an unknown person in mufti was with them. It was not written on him he was from the KGB, he was silent, but the policemen were looking at him all the time, and it was clear he was a big cheese. I was told I should go to a police department with them. I answered I would not go anywhere and I would wait for the end of the sentence term there. The officer on duty told that I must obey, as the term of the arrest was not over. I started to phone my relatives. The officer on duty twisted my hands and snatched the phone. Later I found my phone in my bag. These two with machine guns dragged me to the back seat of a police car. There was a driver in uniform there as well. The man in mufti stayed in the detention center.

One of the policemen whose weight was about 90 kilograms, told me: you must sit, otherwise I would sit on you. It was not very interesting for me to sit under the ass of a policeman, so I sat myself. My things were thrown into the trunk. It was not a long ride. I was taken to a place near Sof'ya Kavaleuskaya side street, about one kilometer from the last bus stop. And I was left there, between a gully and a fence. There was no imitation of execution by a firing squad, but it was not very pleasant anyway. I called my family, they picked me up and took to the walls of the detention center, where my other friends were waiting for me,” Valery Shchukin said.

This incident was called by him “total lawlessness”. At the same time, Shchukin believes that special services had chosen the wrong target. “They have chosen the wrong person to intimidate. I’m a career officer. I am almost 70. I do not care whether I would die at 70 or be shot at 69,” Shchukin said to BelSat.

On 3 July in Pryvakzalnaya Square Shchukin defended his grandson from the unknown in mufti. The trial over the human rights activist lasted for 4 hours.