Mikalai Statkevich: «I regard riot policemen’s actions as tortures”

After the arrest during the solidarity rally on September 16, the leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic party (Narodnaya Hramada) was beaten up in the police department by three riot policemen.

“When the protest rally started, I immediately noticed special attention to me: an unknown person in plain-clothes pointed at me to riot policemen in uniform, saying that I should be detained first. And when the order to detain was uttered, I immediately found myself in the air. For the first time I was carried by men. At the same time they were kicking me in kidney area, however,” Mikola Statkevich said to www.charter97.org website.

“In the police department I saw the things never-before-seen by me in all my vast political and prison experience. All the detained, 35 persons, stood near the wall. Then a group of people in black uniform came, and thumps were heard for a few hours. I regard that as mental cruelty and physical torture of people.

They tried to make me stretch out. I didn’t agree, and two riot policemen in uniform under command of a person in mufti were beating me on my legs for a rather long time. Then I was thrown on the fool. After blows my left leg was swollen, and became half as thick as the right one.

However, I explained riot policemen that I remember 1991 very well, when their colleagues hurried to queue up and rat their fellow officers out. The visit of Lukashenka to Vilnius and the meeting with Lithuanian president is viewed as a pardon by them, they think that now they are considered “democratic” by Europe, and they continue their lawless actions. And moreover, I think that an election campaign has already started o the country, and the authorities are doing everything to intimidate the active part of the society. But attempts to intimidate us are futile. We know our duty to our country, and we will go all the way. And I would like to tell the Belarusian authorities that our party is a member of the Socialist International, and we will inform all our partners about the events on September 16 in Minsk,” the politician said.

As we have informed, yesterday during the disband of the peaceful rally dedicated to the 10th anniversary of opposition leaders Viktar Hanchar and Anatol Krasouski, 35 persons were arrested in Minsk. Many of them were beaten up in the police department of Tsentralny district of Minsk.