A Belarusian From Great Britain to Security Officials: I Will Return, but They Should Think About Where to Run

Balaklava carriers will sculpt bricks in Dagestan for a plate of rice.

Valer Samalazau has been living and working in the UK since July. In August, he decided to go home to meet with loved ones, and at the same time, to vote in the elections. He did not even suspect how this trip home would turn out, Belsat reports.

"Let the KGB figure it out, take him to the KGB"

I flew to Belarus on August 2. Almost all the time I was outside the city, where I could not pick up the phone, I was isolated from the entire information space and was not aware of what was happening.

On the 9th, when there was no Internet, I went to the Minsk office of my company, did some work, and when it became clear that the city was being blocked, I decided that I would go home by train. The Internet did not work much, and I could not check the schedule and decided that it was fate: I would go to the center and see what was happening there with my own eyes.

Near the railway station, six people in black blocked my way; they literally surrounded me. My appearance caught their attention. Considering that I was out of town, I was wearing military hiking pants and a black T-shirt with a skull. As it turned out later, this is the symbol of the British special forces. They asked if I know what this symbol means; in general, it is a symbol of The Punisher movie. This was the starting question from which they began to make some claims to me. They asked me to show my ID, and I showed my driver's license. I answered all the questions politely, but they surrounded me anyway, tied me up, and took me to the paddy wagon. They hit me in the chest in front of the paddy wagon, took things out of my pockets, and put them in the paddy wagon. All this took place near the railway station, where there were no actions and rallies. I was alone, and it cannot even be called a single picket.

Literally, two minutes later, they threw me out of the paddy wagon. They took me to a nearby building, ordered me to take off my shoes and stand against the wall. They began to beat me, hit me on the head, took the phone, unblocked it with my finger, and at the same time asked questions about the contents of the phone. They were looking for some kind of telegram channels, telegram chats, but I had nothing. The phone was practically clean except for the call history. They checked it and saw that all the calls were to the UK - I just arrived. Actually, around this, they began to build suspicions that I was an organizer and a foreign spy. Plus, they found British cards, British pounds sterling. They asked questions about who, what I am, who I work, where, what. I answered their questions. I had never been detained in my life, and there was a feeling that now they would check everything, make sure that I was a peaceful citizen and let me go.

But they were waiting for some kind of main person. Later I googled on the Internet who it is - this is the head of the Zavadski District Department of Internal Affairs, Kiriyl Stanislavavich Kislou. He was in civilian clothes without a mask. By the way, I googled everyone who was without masks and identified almost everyone. He comes, they show him my phone. One of the policemen says that here is a photo of the bulletin for Tsikhanouskaya, he voted for Tsikhanouskaya in the Golos bot and, in fact, there is nothing else on him; it looks like the passenger is not ours. He stood for a moment, thought, and said: let the KGB figure it out, take him to the KGB. In general, I realized that there was a total mistake, and now it will only get worse.

I would not like to focus on violence because, according to people's stories, all this happens according to approximately the same scenario. The only thing was that I was considered the organizer, and I was treated particularly harshly. I was taken for interrogation. I identified two people who interrogated me - they are investigators of the criminal investigation department. I could not identify the other two people; it was difficult to say whether it was the KGB or not.

"Not far from me, a man laid in a pool of blood"

On August 10, all the police departments, all the prisons were already overcrowded, and all night I spent in the parking lot on the ground with everyone else. From time to time, they beat someone; I was also taken for interrogation. There were tough moments. I will share just a few that demonstrate the special cynicism of the internal organs. There was a girl of 20 years old, and her name was Diana; she was also kicked when she was lying on the ground. That is, a person with his hands tied lies on the ground, and he is completely defenseless and kicked. Not far from me, a man laid; he was in a pool of blood and periodically moaned. The man who was closest to him asked for help for him, said: call him an ambulance, he's dying. To which they told him: this is your ticket to freedom - take it, drag it out of the territory, and then both of you are free. He took him and dragged him beyond the territory, this groaning body unconscious. There was also a man who had a bad heart, he asked for a doctor, and the warden shouted very loudly: a doctor! Two men in black ran up and beat him with truncheons. It was a demonstration for all of us that we shouldn't call a doctor. When we were already in the cell, he told us that they began to beat him, but then the doctor really ran up and said that help was really needed. The doctor took him to an ambulance car, gave him some pills; he felt better and was brought back, but no longer touched.

I was personally tortured. My hands were injured. After prison, I was in the hospital for two weeks with a head injury and a hand injury. My hands are still shaking like my grandfather's because they squeezed them with ties, and I could not feel my arms up to elbows; I could not move them. They twisted my arms; this is their method of torture.

"Men in black will hurt even more"

On August 10, I noticed that there were adequate people among the policemen. It really felt that they were unpleasant to do what they were doing. I met two of them. At the time of my arrest, when I was interrogated at the wall, when I was just pulled out of the police van, there was one policeman. He carefully examined the contents of the phone, looked at all the photos, checked everything, and asked: "Do you have three children? Three little girls? Do you have a dog? What is your car?" That is, he showed critical thinking; he understood that a person who has many children does not hold any extremist materials on his phone most likely is not a militant or someone like that. They thought I was a foreign militant-organizer. It was him who said that I should be released, but no one listened to him. I saw the same policeman in the Zavadski District Department of Internal Affairs; he was the shift supervisor who looked after us before dawn. It was the most adequate shift which allowed me to go to the toilet, which gave me water, and they even loosened my ties. They saw that I already had blue hands.

We were also transferred there from place to place, and the sadists in black specially wrung ourhands up so that it was very painful, but the police were simulating. A policeman came up to me and pretended to wring my hands, but in fact, he did not wring them but took them neatly. He showed me with all his looks to pretend that I was in pain; otherwise, the people in black would make it even more painful.

"When a man is slaughtered next to you, you feel his pain on yourself"

People in the paddy wagon were screaming in pain; people were praying, people, grown men, were crying. Someone vomited. I fainted twice because I was pressed there the most.

When we were taken to Zhodzina, people in black talked on the phone. One of them talked to his girlfriend, explained to her where he had hidden the key to the apartment, how to get into the entrance, how to open the hood in the car, and change the washer. In social networks, people say: "Let's influence the security officials through their relatives, wives, and girlfriends so that they talk to them." What information can be conveyed to them? We were killed in this paddy wagon! The grown men were screaming, there was such a wild shout that gave goosebumps, and he calmly talked to the girl on the phone, and she heard it all. Yes, if he brings severed limbs for dinner, she will cook dinner from them without batting an eye. I don't know what level of cynicism she had to calmly continue a conversation when she heard grown men screaming in pain. When a person next to you is beaten so that he loses consciousness, you feel his pain on yourself. Among us was this girl Diana, she was loaded into the paddy wagon last, and we lay on the floor, and people in the paddy wagon walked over us. She stepped on me, and I felt how she was trembling all over.

"I will return, but they should think about where to run..."

When we were in prison, there was a high probability that a criminal case would be sewn on me. During the roll call, they called all the names except mine, and I mentally prepared that they would shut me down for a long time. When they came and told everyone to go out, I didn't believe it.

Relatives, friends, colleagues met me. They said that they had overexposed me for more than a day and violated many laws that they could be sued. I thought, my God, who will we sue? There the judges have hands in blood! They bring people half-dead, blue, there the guy "with no face." And those who "did not have a face" were given 15 days specifically for the wounds to heal. What kind of justice is that?

After jail, I was in the hospital, and right there, I bought a ticket to London. These people in balaclavas who beat people in the street forced me to leave the country and live in exile. Here, in exile, I sit by the sea, drink prosecco, and, one day, I will return. But where will these people in balaclavas return? Nobody is waiting for them here. They are expected in Dagestan to mold bricks without documents for a plate of rice - this is the future that awaits them. I'll be back, but they should think about where to run.