Policemen maltreated 67-year-old activist in police department

Nina Bahinskaia, 67 years old, was not allowed to sit down, was insulted and threatened to bury.

Nina Bahinskaia, 67 years old activist of the democratic movement, yesterday detained along with another eight participants of rally in memory of Mikhail Zhyzneuski, told Radio Svaboda how she was insulted and threatened in the police office of Tsentralny district of Minsk.

I was taken away my stick and not allowed to sit down although there were lots of new chairs in the hall. The policeman himself was sitting. I said that I was a person of advanced age and could not stand without the stick, and I needed something to lean on. But I was not given a chair. We were made facing a wall and said to place our hands on it. That was just impudence. I have never experienced it before.

We, political offenders, were surrendered to young policemen of 25-28 years old. I got the impression that they first heard of the Belarusian language as they were laughing at the surname Laptsianok, one of the detained and drunken woman. Policemen laughed honestly at ordinary Belarusian surnames.

They asked in a humiliated manner why we honoured the memory of Mikhail Zhyzneuski. I said: he is a hero. Then the policemen asked how he related to Belarus. We responded that Mikalai died for freedom of Ukraine, and it meant the freedom from Moscow yoke. The police officer said that Belarus had never been an independent state.

I have never been sworn at. But yesterday it happened, they were naming different genitals, and insulting from a sex perspective and a young guy was doing it. It was extremely impolite. At the end he said that I was too old in my tooth and he could personally bury me. Having heard it, I asked a woman who was with me in the police office to be a witness in court for physical intimidation. I did not sign the protocol on an unauthorized rally, having said that I did not understand foreign language" ,the activist said.

Today the activist is tried in the Tsentralny district court of Minsk.

It should be reminded that yesterday it was one year since the death of Belarusian Mikhail Zhyzneuski at the Maidan in Kiev. The rally in his memory was held in Minsk. The rally's participants laid flowers, sang a hymn "Mighty God", and the hymn of Ukraine, then police arrived and everybody was arrested.