After the first day of protest, the Belarusian Interior Ministry reported on two thousand detainees. The second day the figure rose to three thousand. One of them, a young man, captured by riot police in Minsk, told the Vot-tak.tv correspondent on condition of anonymity how he had been captured and what he remembered from the local police department.
“Not mentioning the details of where and how I was captured… I was dragged across the road, beaten with batons in the car. There were some more details, but I’ll omit them.
Specifically, they brought everyone to the police station and put them against the wall, their legs were shoulder-width, hands above their heads. There were more people coming, so many of us stood from 2 am to 2 pm. Some came later, but mostly at night, so everyone stood for 8, 10, 12 hours in this way.
We were given 2 or 3 bottles of water for 40-60 people, people passed it on to each other. So much for coronavirus prevention, when 40-60 people drink from a single bottle. It was all happening in the yard of the police department, right in the yard there was a bio-toilet, and they let us go there if we asked them to.
We were guarded by different people: first the riot police, who brought us there. THose were simply animals. There were also cops and people in military uniforms, most likely conscripts. Those were the most normal, adequate people, they fulfilled some requests, they were more or less humane. A few hours later, the girls, of whom there were about 10, had benches and seats bought for them.
With the sun rising, at 7 o’clock, standing in the sun became unbearable. It was scorching. People passed out, fainted, even an ambulance was called and the person was taken away. Then they started to move people to different places, because the sun didn’t shine from all sides. Those who could no longer stand it, would go into the shade. It was a system. “Looks like hell on earth. It’s just hell. When the sun rose, one of the “guys” would let us sit on the asphalt facing the wall. It was one of the conscripts, these guys were 18 or 19 years old. Towards the end, about 12:00, we were allowed to sit down.
After that, the riot police arrived and began to brutally put people in the paddy wagons to take them to Zhodzina. They started to put people on the floor, face to the floor, and took people away in this position.
Our interviewer stayed in Minsk, as it was impossible to put all the detainees in the vans, despite the attempts. The detention took place at night on August 10th , the young man was released the same day.
Recorded by Barbara Radzyuk for Vot-tak.tv / Belsat.
