Deutche Welle: How They Torture In Belarus
- 1.07.2019, 21:00
The call to publicize cases of torture and ill-treatment, to protect human dignity is relevant for Belarus.
Human rights activists and victims of violence explained in an interview with Deutsche Welle why it is important.
From June 24 to 28, the human rights campaign “Pytai / Sia. The Week Against Torture”, timed to coincide with UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, was held for the first time in Belarus. Its message is to act to eradicate the most severe violations of human rights. Human rights activists state: the problem of torture, cruel or degrading treatment or punishment is relevant for Belarus.
Complaints of torture are considered in the Republic of Belarus superficially
In the Criminal Code (CC) of Belarus, as local human rights activists point out, there is no article providing for responsibility for those who use torture in places of detention; the authorities do not cooperate with human rights defenders to prevent torture, and the country's control over the observance of the rights of prisoners does not exclude them. In the places of detention there are often no conditions for basic hygienic procedures. In addition, the statistics on all cases of inhuman treatment of people behind bars is not freely open for the public.
However, as coordinator of the initiative “Human Rights Defenders Against Torture”, lawyer and human rights activist Siarhei Ustsinau told Deutche Welle, we can refer to the official sources: “In a report submitted to the UN Committee against Torture, the Belarusian state says that from January 2012 to December 2015, the departments of the Investigatory Committee (IC) received 614 allegations of misconduct by the law enforcement officials that fall under the definition of “torture” and “ill-treatment”.
Over these appeals, Ustsinau cites the document, “checks have been conducted, which resulted in starting only 10 criminal cases. In other cases, the information indicated in the appeals wasn’t conformed, and therefore decisions were made to refuse to open a criminal case.” Based on our experience, the lawyer continues, any complaints of torture are considered superficially in Belarus. Many of them are sent to the prosecutor’s office, and then forwarded to the Investigatory Committee, which fails to carry out the necessary investigative actions.
My son was told “you will never prove anything” after the beating
A vivid example is the story told to DW by Maryna Yauhleuskaya, whose son Artur was sentenced to 12 years in jail under the “anti-drug” Article 328 of the Criminal Code. According to Mrs.Yauhleuskaya, she saw her son in the Frunzenski district police department of Minsk two days after the arrest: “He couldn’t stand properly, said they had broken his two toes. Then I saw that my son and all those who were detained with him were driven from one office to another, where screams were heard from. It is clear that they were beaten. My son was dragged out of the office under his arms, apparently he was unconscious. I tried to make a video, but they threatened they would crush down my cell phone.”
Mrs.Yauhleuskaya says she knows the circumstances of her son’s detention: “The police broke into the apartment, where six people were at that time, they were all badly beaten, hot irons were put on their backs. The operatives forced everyone to sign papers that the detainees could not read. Everyone signed everything out of the fear of further torture. There is a medical conclusion about Artur’s health condition afterwards.”
According to Mrs.Yauhleuskaya, she filed a complaint with the district prosecutor's office, reporting the beatings of her son. A month later, a commission came to him. Artur told everything to the inspectors, but they answered he would never prove anything.
“Before the trial, the son repeatedly went to the punishment cell (he spent 45 days there) because of the fault-finding - either he stood in the wrong place, or sat down in the inappropriate place, and due to all this, Artur lost his memory for 4 months, he didn’t recognize anyone at the trial. The doctors said the memory loss was the result of maladjustment, “ Maryna Yauhleuskaya says.
Torture in Belarus begins from the moment of detention
“I encountered multiple ill-treatment, which can be called torture, during each detention. When they throw you into a paddy wagon, this is torture. They push two or three people in the so-called “fish tank”(a closed solitary cell with an area of no more than half a square meter - edit.) of a paddy wagon, although it’s hard for one person to breathe there, "says former Chairman of the United Civil Party (UCP), now director of the European Dialogue Center Anatol Lyabedzka.
When I was in the “Americanka” (the KGB prison in Belarus), masked people “worked” with us, Lyabedzka recalls. They humiliated the prisoners daily and hourly: “They burst into the cells, beat everyone with electric shock guns, forced them to run up and down the steep stairs in handcuffs, and they forced us to take out the tank used as a toilet bowl in the cells with no toilet, also in handcuffs. Take it down the stairs, in handcuffs, and they also beat us with a shocker at the same time. Once every 2-3 days they drove the prisoners into the so-called gym, where they made people strip naked at 12-15 degrees, and forced to stand quietly against the concrete wall. If anyone moved, they used stun guns”.
In the cell, according to Lyabedzka, it was about 15 degrees, he had to wrap his hands in a towel, put on everything he could to warm up at least somehow: “They turned on the lights so that the inmates could not sleep. You can feel the awful smell in the :Amerikanka” only when they take you outside for an hour. Torture is when you don’t even have a plank bed, for a while I slept on a shield made of boards on a cold concrete floor”.
Anatol Lyabedzka confessed that he had seen even more terrible places of detention than the ‘Amerikanka”: “In Zhodzina, lice jumped on blankets, which smelled vile”.
Not everyone in Belarus understands what an absolute prohibition of torture is.
The findings of the sociological survey “Measuring the level of tolerance of Belarusians to the state violence”, conducted in the spring of 2019 by the Legal Initiative together with SATIO, show that the majority of respondents do not understand what an absolute prohibition of torture is.
Although the state denies the fact of torture and ill-treatment against even well-known people in the country, for example, former presidential candidates in the 2010 elections, human rights activists urge Belarusians not to be silent about the ill-treatment in the places of detention.
However, for now, states Ustsinau, there are only two cases won in the UN Committee on Human Rights (HRC) with regard to the conditions of detention in the Center for Isolation of Offenders: “I handled these cases from the beginning to the end. The UN HRC recognized violation of Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - “torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” and Clause 1 of Article 10 of the Covenant - “humane treatment of persons deprived of their freedom”.