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CASE #362
Date
09 / 08 / 2020
City
Minsk
Perpetrators
  • Detention Centre Personnel
  • Special Purpose Police Unit OMON
Type of violation
  • Arbitrary or unlawful arrest and/or detention
  • Beating
  • Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
  • Denial of appropriate conditions of detention
  • Denial of legal rights of arrested persons
  • No consultation with legal counsel permitted
  • Physical assaults (other)
  • Use of excessive force
  • Use of pepper spray (close proximity)
International classification of violations
  • Prohibition of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
  • Right to fair trial (procedural violations)
  • Right to liberty and security of person
  • Violation of rights of detained or imprisoned persons
  • Violations of rights of accused persons
Description

Time: daytime

Place/Location: Akrestina Detention Centre(Minsk); Zhodzina Detention Centre (Zhodina, pin on the map)

Identity of the victim(s): Mikalai Yeutushenka

Identity of the perpetrator(s): undefined

Mikalai Yeutushenka testified about how he got brutally and arbitrarily detained and kept at the Okrestina detention facility. At the time of detention, Mikalai was beaten in the transportation vehicle. The agents used pepper spray in the vehicle while detainees were in. He witnessed officers and detention facility staff torturing detainees. No legal aid was given to detainees demand. Upon a fast and frivolous court hearing, Mikalai was transferred to Zhodzina before the pre-trial detention centre. Both detention centres had overcrowded cells. He was released, but later received a summon to court, the prosecutor initiated a criminal case against him.


Mikalai testified that the unconscious man from the famous video with the motionless lying on the ground with two OMON agents leaning over him was in the same prison vehicle with Mikalai. The man was beaten up by OMON because he attempted to help out a friend who he saw being tortured.

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