KGB pensioner: “Now I will attend rallies every Wednesday”

A former KGB officer is indignant over the fact that people are being detained for no reasons in streets.

Minsk resident Lyubou Sedareika, a KGB pensioner, wrote to “Nasha Niva” newspaper. She is indignant over the outrage in the country. Her son Barys was detained near the Ice Palace in Minsk on July 6. The woman says the young man was waiting for her. He was attacked by six shaven-headed men before his mother’s eyes and dragged to a bus.

Lyubou Sedareika notes the rally had already ended by that time. The woman tried to get in the bus, but was pushed off rudely. She complains she had bruises on her arms.

The woman says she heard plainclothes men talking on walkie-talkie. One of them asked:

“How many people do you need in the bus?” – “Seventeen.”

“So they grasped everyone,” the woman says.

She complains she could not find her son in police departments for a long time. She was told in police departments that Barys was in a detention centre in Akrestsin Street, but officers at the detention centre said she should look for him in police. As it turned out, her son was in the Frunzenski district police department. Then he was taken to a detention centre in Akrestsin Street and then to a detention facility in Zhodzina. Barys says the trip to Zhodzina was the most awful he saw during ten days of arrests, he was sentenced to by judge Zhukouskaya. The guy said the prisoners were made to run through a chain of masked men with dogs. Guards tried to scare inmates in such a way.

As Lyubou Sedareika learnt, her son did not receive all parcels, though they contained only permitted things. People had to stand in a queue from 8 am to 1 pm to pass a parcel. Barys said, not political prisoners had priority in receiving parcels. After the release, the people were taken to poultry factory “Krasnoye Znamya” so that their friends and relatives, waiting in another place, could not meet them.

“I have stood far from politics before that event. Now I will go to rallies every Wednesday. I will be the first there. I will protests against this… My heart bleeds,” Sedareika said. According to the women, her son Barys feels OK after the arrest. People in the cell supported one another.