Oppositionist claims she was treated with violence in temporary isolation cell

European Belarus activist Alena Siamenchukova submitted a complaint to the Vitsebsk region prosecutor.

The police detained Siamenchukova on 29 June. In her backpack, they found leaflets calling to boycott the “parliamentary election”. Then they wrote a detention protocol on part 3, article 23.34 of the Belarusian Administrative Code (breach of mass events organization). On 5 June judge Iryna Grabouskaya sentenced Alena to a 10-day arrest, as protivpytok.org reports. Before the trial, the activist was kept in a temporary isolation cell.

In the complaint, the girl writes that in the isolation cell of the Vitsebsk regional executive committee interior department she was treated with violence and had to endure unbearable conditions.

”In the cell, there was no place to sleep or any furniture at all. It was very cold. The administration of the temporary isolation cell of the Vitsebsk regional executive committee interior department refused to give me warm clothes, water, hygiene supplies passed in a parcel. I had to lie right on the dirty floor in a white T-shirt, jeans and ballerinas. It was so cold I couldn’t fall asleep. I had to walk in the cell all the time. The air was stuffy; there was no way to air the cell. All night long a light bulb was shining into my eyes, it was impossible to switch it off… Nor could I switch off the radio, its sound was torturing my brain. I got food for the first time in the morning of the next day of detention. I had to eat on the floor with dirty hands since I never got soap and towel. I couldn’t use the lavatory, because it lacked a flush tank, toilet paper, was placed so that the guards could see it and in general was disgusting,” Alena Siamenchukova writes,

Moreover, Siamenchukova points to the fact that during one day she was kept guarded in the isolation cell waiting for the trial, although her guilt wasn’t defined. She quotes part 3, article 9 of the Pact on civil and political rights, where Belarus is a participant. According to this article, custody of people waiting for a trial cannot be obligatory.

The girl asks the prosecutor’s office to demand from the Vitsebsk executive committee interior department to eliminate the reasons and conditions that favor the violations in the temporary isolation cell of the rights guaranteed by the International pact on civil and political rights, and to charge the department with breach of her rights.

In case the complaint is not satisfied, Alena Siamenchukova is ready to defend her rights with help of international organizations.