Mothers 328 Activist Swallows Pills at Police Station

Marina Kiselevich filed a complaint against the law enforcers for inciting suicide.

On New Year's Eve Marina Kiselevich, business coach and one of the activists of the Mothers 328 movement, found herself in intensive care of the toxicological department of the emergency hospital. Her friends claimed that the woman had swallowed pills in the police department after her detention, reports Radio Svaboda.

The toxicology department of the hospital emergency room confirmed to Nasha Niva reporters that such a patient had been admitted. Now Marina Kiselevich has been transferred to a standard ward and she could tell how she had come to the hospital with poisoning.

"On 30 December the police called me and asked where I was. Allegedly they needed to question me about some VKontakte posts under my surname. I told them where I was because I was not on VKontakte and I had nothing to fear. However, three officers of the criminal investigation department of Kastrychnitski DPD came for me without any documents and took me to the police station along with the equipment," said Kiselevich.

In the police department, the woman said that she was active only on Facebook, and then they started showing her messages from there, asking about the authorship. She refused to testify against herself.

The woman says she spent the night at the police station in a cold cell with a stone floor measuring one and a half metres by one and a half metres.

"It was very cold in there, so I could neither sit nor sleep, and I walked through the night. They only let me go to the toilet," she said.

In the morning Kiselevich was taken to the district department of the Investigative Committee, but there her case was returned.

"I drew attention to the fact that in this way the police officers violate Article 108 of the Code of Criminal Procedure: if I am detained before a criminal case is opened, the matter must be resolved within a day. If it is not resolved, I should be released. Then they told me that I would be detained under administrative proceedings and started demanding my Facebook password. They started shouting at me, threatening me. For some reason, they didn't take the pills away from my personal belongings. So I couldn't stand it and took my sleeping pills. I had a plate with me - enough, I thought, to die.

After that, the woman only remembers how they called an ambulance, tried to induce vomiting, put her on a stretcher. She regained consciousness only on January 1 in the intensive care unit. The police came to the hospital to clarify the circumstances of the case.

"I will write a statement against the officers of Kastrychnitski District Police Department: "incitement to suicide". This is not the first case of pressure on me. I don't know why. I can only speculate. Since 2017, I have been trying to fight for my son, who was convicted under the "drug" article. In 2020, I complained about the inaction of the authorities during the pandemic and to the CEC that Lukashenka had been registered illegally.

In November 2021, I filed a complaint against Lukashenka to the KGB under Article 357, Part 3 of the Criminal Code (conspiracy or other actions committed to seize state power). I think it's an act of revenge, as it is not the first attempt to send me to jail. In the past, they have only fined me," the woman speculated.

The organization Mothers 328 is a movement striving for the relaxation of the anti-drug laws in Belarus. The movement was founded by mothers and relatives of those convicted under Article 328 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus.