On August 10, one of the the most heated places of confrontation between protesters and law enforcement was near the Riga supermarket in Minsk. The riot police fired rubber bullets, used batons and flash grenades against people. An eyewitness of the events, Raman, told us how he was brutally beaten by the riot police.
Raman came to Surganov street, as he was worried about his friend who is a doctor. She was alone at the scene as a volunteer, helping the victims.
Raman saw a wounded young man and came to help him get off the ground. He says he was away from the protesters, on the other side across the intersection. A plainclothes policeman approached them and started provoking everyone who was standing there.
“He was beating people indiscriminately. I covered myself with my bike. An ambulance arrived, I wanted to help load the wounded man and got hit with a baton on the back of my head”.
Raman fell down, the riot police started beating him in turns. Raman said the paramedics were doing everything very slowly, so he got the impression that the team was working together with the provocateur and riot police.
Eventually, it was his friend who stitched him up. Fortunately, the young man’s skull was not fractured, but there was a deep wound left on his forehead. His friend put seven stitches on him in the field.
“I can tell you that there are so many provocateurs. The law enforcers in plain clothes, who deliberately pretend to be protesters, get bored and make law enforcers angry. I tried to take a picture of one, wearing a T-shirt with letters, but the beating started”.
On the second day of the peaceful protest, there were more victims of law enforcement violence. Journalists were injured, too.
DR/OS, belsat.eu
