Salihorsk: Members of Belaruskali strike committee reportedly beaten in police station
On February 28, a number of Belaruskali strikers were detained and driven to Salihorsk district department of Interior. They were battered there, the strike committee says on Telegram.
Seven residents of Salihorsk – three men and four women – were taken away by the local police on Sunday. The reason for the detention has not been reported yet, but it is known that the detainees’ places were searched.
Later, three of the women were released; it is them who informed the media and public about the beating. According to them, the policemen hit the detainees even in the head, the men were treated more brutally.
Strikers Anton Dzyamkou, Kanstantsin Dzyateeu, Andrey Mahilevets as well as Salihorsk resident Hanna Asipenka are still in custody.
In the wake of the brutal crackdown on the Belarusian peaceful protesters in 2020, more than 100 workers of Belaruskali, a world-known potash mineral fertilisers producer which supplies products to more than 50 countries, took part in the strike. At least 55 of them were fired. In January, however, the Belaruskali directorship said that the freshly-fired workers might be reinstated and the disciplinary penalties would be lifted after its partner, the Norwegian company Yara International, voiced concerns about the situation in Belarus.
As reported earlier, almost 35 thousand people signed a petition to Yara with a call to stop cooperation with Belaruskali. The authors of the petition believe that Yara’s attempts to influence Belaruskali to stop violating the rights of workers and harass striking workers will not give any result.
