Riot policemen congratulated border guards by torture in paddy wagon

A participant of the celebration of the Border Guard Day told about “making a pleasant acquaintance” with Minsk special forces.

Yury Barboshyn works at a tyre fitting shop. On May 29 in the morning he felt really bad – the celebration of the Border Guard Day on the day before ended in an unusual way. First policemen stopped him and his friends from entering Chelyuskintsy Park, and then he and his 9 comrades-in-arms were detained by riot policemen near the Island of Tears. However, before their voyage to the police department, Yury was to encounter other “adventures” in the paddy wagon, Euroradio reports.

“We were not taken anywhere. We stood there for about two hours. We were clubbed by truncheons. It was dark already. They switched off the light, and that was the end: everyone was either forced to make a “swallow” (an arabesque, a kind of a torture), or was handcuffed. We were told: well, you trash, did you have a good time? It’s enough. Not only paratrooper should catch it,” the young man said.

After “making an acquaintance” with the riot policemen Yury feels rather bad.

While talking, Yury rubs his flanks, winces, he says that he feels bad. As said by him, he was beaten professionally, with almost no traces left.

The guy had his military service in Polatsk border unit, and he had been celebrating this holiday in the streets of Minsk for 6 years. He encountered riot policemen for the first time. He told that they had not even left any garbage, though he does not deny he and his friends had been drinking alcohol in places where it is prohibited. However, Yury has not found out what the charges against him where.

“As a result we undersigned blank police reports. We did not read anything, there were no reports or anything else, even to look through. We were threatened by several days’ incarceration if we do not sign. We were told we were going to found ourselves behind the bars otherwise. And I needed to go to work. That’s the only reason I signed it,” Yury said.

In the end of the conversation journalists asked whether border guards mounted resistance to riot policemen. Otherwise the cruelty could not be explained by anything. The guy said with a sarcastic smile that in case anyone would take it into his head to resist, the whole matter could have finished in a different way:

“And why should we resist? We all were sane. There were 15 of us, and there were 5 of them. If we resisted, we would simply stretch them out, no matter how trained and sturdy they are.”

It is almost an unbelievable story. In order to check its truthfulness, journalist addressed the spokesperson of Minsk police Alyaksandr Lastouski. He feels suspicious about Yury’s story. And he said that he would know if something unusual had happened in Minsk on the previous day:

“The chiefs of the Main Directorate of the Interior Affairs would have invited me and told to convey this information to journalists. But while there were no such facts, and it was not an extraordinary situation, so there were no reasons to inform you about that.”

The former border guard Yury insists that it was a truthful story. He even told that he had found out from the policemen in the police department of Central district that there had been detentions of border guards in other parts of the city as well.

The Border Committee does not confirm truthfulness of Yury’s story as well. The spokesperson Alyaksandr Tishchanka says that there were no detentions among the servicemen of border troops, but he could not have information about former border guards. Tishchanka added that instead of celebrations in the streets, border guards at compulsory military service met with labour collectives:

“There have been festive events, concerts, laying flowers to monuments and graves. We meet with labour collectives, schoolchildren – there are different forms.”

Yury says he would not go to court. But he is going to take a walk down the streets of the city with his comrades-in-arms next year for sure, in defiance of everything.