Gulagu.net: Russian special services assisted Belarusian counterparts in torturing protesters in 2020
Vladimir Osechkin, the founder of the Russian human rights group Gulagu.net, says that they have information about Russian special services’ contribution to recent torture cases in Belarus.
In an interview with Belsat-linked media project Vot Tak on October 5, he made mention of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service’s video archive obtained by journalists: its materials prove the facts of brutal torture in Russian prisons. The Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) came into picture during the crackdown on post-election protests in August 2020, he states.
“We know that, among others, special forces of the Federal Penitentiary Service moved to Belarus to use cruel and inhumane methods against peaceful demonstrators,” the interviewee said.
According to Osechkin, until recently, there was no direct evidence of torture that got out from the torture system itself. He called the latest leak of torture videos ‘the most tremendous fiasco of Russia’s secret services’. The human rights defenders have not yet had enough time to view all the videos of torture (total of 40 GB of data received), only one brutal video showing the rape rape of a tied prisoner has been published so far.
Gulagu.net project promises to name those who put people to torture or instigated such crimes. Osechkin lays the personal responsibility for the tortures on Russian leader Vladimir Putin who, in his turn, appointed those responsible for the ‘torture conveyor belt’.
