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CASE #4
Date
09 / 08 / 2020
City
Minsk
Perpetrators
  • Special Purpose Police Unit OMON
  • Undefined
Type of violation
  • Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
  • Physical assaults (other)
  • Use of excessive force
  • Use of stun grenades (close proximity)
International classification of violations
  • Prohibition of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
  • Right to freedom of peaceful assembly
Description

Time: around 10-11 PM.

Place/location: Victors Avenue.

Identity of the victim(s): Testimony #6.

Identity of the perpetrator: Special Police Force OMON (they had black uniform and OMON hash mark), unknown (those who used riot control weapons).

The victim joined the crowd of peaceful protestors in the vicinity of Niamiha Metro station to participate in protests. The crowd moved along Victors Avenue until the way was blocked by OMON. Some people, perhaps acting as provocateurs, began to call out for a confrontation with the police. A small number of protestors ran ahead, and a confrontation ensued with the police. Protestors were completely unarmed while members of the OMON unit had batons.

Several people were severely beaten by OMON and the rest retreated. There was subsequently a second wave of confrontation with the aim of freeing those individuals who had been beaten. The victim was 2 or 3 meters from OMON when he felt a blast wave. His arm was wounded by a stun grenade fragment. The law enforcement agents did not warn protestors that the protest was illegal and that they would start using riot control weapons. Later, the law enforcement agents started to brutally disperse the crowd.

In the military hospital to which the victim was driven by an ambulance, there were people with wounds of a very serious nature: a man with a disrupted heel, a man with a wounded arm (in two places), belly and upper body, a man who had been hit by a rubber projectile which had been fired at point-blank range.

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