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“Young OMON men were hot headed, but the older ones were more indulgent”

Mit einer roten Markierung markiert trifft besonders hart

Last spring, Kirill graduated from high school. The summer of 2020 was the last one before his ‘entry into adulthood’. On August 9, this young man went to choose his future for the first time – to vote for the president of the country. Kirill voted in favor of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya because he hated dictatorship, as he confesses. On August 10, he went to a peaceful rally where he was detained. He spent the night at one of the RUVD [district department of internal affairs, police station] in Minsk; when he was released Kirill didn’t immediately realize how lucky he was.

Kirill,a student
Alter: 18 years old
Die Stadt: Minsk
Wann: 10.08.2020

He was walking along Dzerzhinsky Avenue in a column of people

Inhaftiert in: In a bus, in Moskovskoe RUVD for 1 day
Ärztlicher Befund: Not available but there were impact injuries and bruises all over his body caused by truncheons, a dislocated knee, injury to the jaw
Folgen: The knee was set back in place by itself, the jaw still makes itself felt

Autor: Project team August2020

Photo: Project team August2020

Yellow bus
 

On the evening of August 10, Kirill together with his friends went out to Dzerzhinsky Avenue. There were already a lot of people who were going towards Nemiga Street, and the guys mingled with the crowd. Near the Belarus Bank Building a yellow bus blocked the column’s path, OMON jumped out of it. Kirill didn’t notice what was going on ahead at once, and when the people scattered in all directions he did not start running, he thought that since he had done nothing wrong why they should seize him? 

– They ran up to me from behind, I didn’t even see it. When I was going upstairs someone caught me by the hand. I jerked back my hand instinctively and saw an OMON man swinging his truncheon at me. I think I got hit on the head then, I don’t remember it for sure. I fell on the sidewalk; I did not resist and did not shout. Two OMON men decided to give me a kicking and they did a good job of it. I was battered by their boots and with their truncheons.

Two OMON men decided to give me a kicking and they did a good job of it. I was battered by their boots and with their truncheons

Kirill was then dragged to a parked yellow bus and kicked inside. He was the first one to be detained. He was thrown to the very back of the bus and put on his knees, face down between the rows of benches. 


– For a while I was the only person detained on that bus. The siloviki [security forces] offended me in any possible way but I don’t remember exactly how. Then they brought in one more person, as far as I understood, not much older than me. While talking to each other, the OMON men addressed us from time to time, but it was not clear who they were talking to because it was forbidden to look at them. Then, they began to beat with a truncheon the one to whom they addressed their questions to make it clear. I got hit in the neck and on the jaw. Moreover, they hit me on the jaw in the strangest way – with the handle. It was unpleasant. When the bus was full of people they drove off taking all of us to Moskovskoe RUVD, which would take no more than 5 minutes.
 

Well known department of internal affairs

Kirill had no doubt that he found himself in Moskovskoe RUVD. Not only because it is located near Dzerzhisky Avenue but also because he is well acquainted with this district department of internal affairs. When Kirill was finishing school, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) came to his school on a recruitment drive and encouraged them to enter the Academy. Kirill had even submitted the documents and brought them to Moskovskoe RUVD. He was rejected on health grounds, which he is happy about now.

– I delayed my decision on where to go after finishing school until the last moment. you know how it happens: there seems to be a lot of time ahead and you keep delaying it again and again. The only thing that attracted me to the Academy under the MVD was the 300-ruble scholarship. And this is the minimum, if you are going to gain an enhanced stipend then it will go up to 400 rubles. The entry score is so low there that I would make the cut even without a Central Testing score. The only one negative thing is that you have to live in barracks for a year. And all the rest is not bad: there they have you fed and dressed. Also, they promise all sorts of goodies: if you graduate with a rank then you can get an appartement, your career will grow – all this stuff! In reality, it’s not as great as they make out, and I am happy that I didn’t get in. Even when I was submitting the documents I understood everything about the system, but I thought I would work until the first time they tried to put pressure on me. Roughly speaking, I wanted to be an honest cop. 

At the exit from the bus the OMON men lined up in a corridor and beat everybody who was coming out, the same corridor of blows was also in the inner courtyard, the beating continued all the way up to the door of the building. 
– One of the siloviki unfortunately hit me on the lungs but somehow under the ribs, I began to cough and to choke. Apparently, he liked it, he shouted to me, “deal with it!”, and began to beat still more roughly. 

In RUVD all the detainees were taken to the fifth floor. On the way, they were beaten by both the escorting guards and those who just stood on the stairs. As Kirill says, each flight of stairs was more and more difficult for him to overcome. In the assembly hall people were thrown on the bare floor and left for an uncertain period. Then they began to put people in the chairs but at the same time they were forbidden to raise their heads. Next to Kirill a man was sitting with blue hands in restraints.

I thought I would work till the first time they tried to put pressure on me. Roughly speaking, I wanted to be an honest cop 

– You had to sit in a certain way putting your hands and head on the back of the chair in front. I do not know how much time we spent like this. Then the operatives entered the hall and asked, “Who else has not registered yet?” One of them came up to me, took my data and went away. They began to put questions to one of the detainees but he was silent. Then the operative burst into a range and began to shout something like, “Do you have extra organs?”, and took the man away. We didn’t see him after that, or rather didn’t hear him since we could hardly see anything there. 

Then Kirill was taken to the room behind the hall for a personal search. They put him face to the wall, feet shoulder-width apart, checked his body for tattoos and scars. As for his personal belongings, he only had keys, a mask and a cross - all this, together with his shoelaces, was seized and he was taken to the first floor.

– The man who led me downstairs was fairly indulgent; he even told me to be more careful and not to hurry. I think he saw how beaten we all were. On each floor there were OMON with shields and in uniforms. I was placed in a monkey cage - that was a cell approximately 1.5x6 meters, about half of the entire space was occupied by a wooden bench, at the very top there was a hood window that did not work. I became the sixth person in that cell, it was very stuffy. Air only came from the holes at the bottom of the door and from cracks in the walls. I got acquainted with the guys who were sitting there. One of them had turned 27 that day, and we all joked that he went to the sauna with a group of his friends to celebrate. Then a few more people were thrown in with us. The guards forbade us from sleeping in the cell - they periodically looked through the peephole in the door. They reasoned that they hadn’t slept and so the detainees would not either. 

Dangerous T-shirt

– They arrested me in a T-shirt with the word "psychosis" on the front - I had made it myself. No one paid attention to it at first, but when I was leaving the cell to have my photo taken, one OMON man, a rather a big one, did notice. He saw the inscription, said: “What is all this for? What have you achieved with this?" Probably, he got really interested because they had nothing else to do. I began to answer him, such banal things. When he asked where I studied, I replied that I hadn’t even submitted the documents yet and that I tried to go to the Ministry of Internal Affairs but was rejected on health grounds. It seemed to me that he was shocked by this.

When an operative came to take Kirill’s picture, the OMON man persistently showed him this inscription on the T-shirt. As Kirill says, the operative began to laugh, and for a long time he could not get it together and take the photographs. Then the OMON man told the operative that Kirill had submitted documents to that very department of internal affairs, to which the operative joked, “So you got to in.” After that, Kirill was returned to the cell.

Early in the morning, all the detainees were returned to a hall, but to a different one to last time. This time no one was beaten on the way. They even gave them something to drink and every so often took detainees to the toilet.
– They seated us in the same way as before: hands and head should be on the back of the chair in front. The guys and I sat right under the air conditioner, and we were dressed lightly - a T-shirt and shorts, cold air was blowing right onto our backs, somewhere around the kidneys. It was very hard to sit, but I had to endure.

For about twenty minutes we heard him being beaten in the next room, he was shouting so much that they put a gag in his mouth

In the hall, the operatives made sure that no one was sleeping. If anybody zonked out they would immediately hit him. But Kirill managed to have a nap for a few minutes so that nobody would notice.
– Suddenly an operative enters the hall and asks who was there from a certain city. A guy said that he was from that place. And the operative took him away saying: “Here you are, my dear, let's go and you’ll tell us who you are working for.” For about twenty minutes we heard him being beaten in the next room, he was shouting so much that they put a gag in his mouth, but we still heard that nightmare. In general, if they took a person away like that, we would never see him again.


Then an OMON man came into the hall and cried out, “Hey, psychosis!” Kirill understood that he was addressing him. The silovik told him to stand up, he said the operatives were standing and you were also to stand. At that moment Kirill thought that he was not an operative but he did not argue and counted the joke in his favor. Then he was even glad to have a chance to stand for a while to loosen his stiff muscles and to look around – he saw that there were about a hundred people in the hall.

People were taken to the toilet and Kirill decided to wait till the moment when he would be led by the very OMON man who was interested in his T-shirt. Near the bathroom they met a woman who worked at the human resources department, Kirill remembered her from when he brought the documents for the Academy. The OMON man began to talk to her and then he decided to demonstrate the Kirill’s T-shirt, took him by the hair, made him to straighten up. Then he let him go and kicked him to the toilet door.

“Let’s tear his T-shirt, otherwise he would not get further away from here than GAI station [traffic police]”

They began to release people from the RUVD when it was already quite light in the street. They called people by surname, gave them papers to sign, returned their belongings and set them free. Kirill does not know what document he signed – they did not let anybody read it, and he had no wish to ask them. He was led out to the porch where that very operative stood who took photos and the woman from the human resources department. They both looked at the guy and said: “Let’s tear his T-shirt, otherwise he would not get further away from here than the GAI station” (and pointed to the building in about ten meters away from the RUVD). But Kirill assured them that he would reach home carefully. Then he was advised to turn the T-shirt inside out so that to avoid taking risk. He followed this advice and limped home. 

Kirill did not receive medical help, or rather, he looked at the line in the emergency room and decided not to wait. Over time, his dislocated knee set by itself, the marks of impact injuries and bruises disappeared, the wounds healed. Sometimes, he clicks his jaw, but that doesn't bother him much.
 

Kirill submitted a complaint against Moskovskoe RUVD but soon received an answer that no violations had been discovered during the inspection. For prevention of abuse the officers had been advised to treat the detainees respectfully during their talks with them. He wrote no more complaints. 
– They beat me most severely when they received me on the bus, it was calmer in the RUVD, only the conditions were terrible. If you look at it, you notice that we were received by young OMON men who were hot headed, the older ones were more indulgent, they were just the ones from the RUVD. Well, unless you take into consideration the one who tortured people. 

Two months later, a court order addressed to Kirill came, it said that the penalty period in his administrative case under people's article 23.34 had expired, so they stopped everything. “I think if they had made it on time, I would have been found guilty,” he says. 

“I didn’t meet drug addicts and drunks in the RUVD”

Kirill speaks well about all people with whom he managed to get acquainted in the RUVD. Many of those sitting with him were detained at random and not during the protests.
– One was walking in the park, feeding the ducks on Nemiga. The other one was taken out of a taxi which he had just taken together with his girlfriend, they came up, broke the window, and dragged him out. Still another was taken near Petrovshchina station on his way from a bar. In short, these guys spent their days calmly. None of them were suspicious or aggressive - no, they were decent people, some of them had served in the army. I didn’t meet drug addicts and drunks there. 

One was walking in the park, feeding the ducks on Nemiga. The other one was taken out of a taxi which he had just taken together with his girlfriend, they came up, broke the window, and dragged him out.

The fact that he was released the next day from the RUVD is not surprising to Kirill, he says there was too many people arriving. He got to know about everything that was happening outside the walls of Okrestina [name of the street in Minsk where temporary detention facility and pre-trial detention center are located] in a couple of days when Internet appeared in the country and the beaten, crippled people began to be set free. 

– Then I thought that I was lucky, I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth because what they did to people in Okrestina was terrible. Nothing terrible happened to me.

Now Kirill studies at the university, taking the first semester’s final exams. He says the tutors treat him with understanding, before now they even asked to warn them if anyone was detained so that they had an opportunity to help. Kirill is calm and philosophical about everything that happened to him: “If they hadn’t detained me, they would have taken somebody else.”

His parents were the ones who experienced the hardest part of what had happened, they did not know for sure what had happened to their child, where he was. He was forbidden to take part in any protests for a while. However, the desire to do so disappeared from Kirill by itself when, only a few days after his release, girls began to give flowers to siloviki. To the very same ones who had beaten him up in the yellow bus. 
P.S. He didn’t submit an application to the investigative committee. 

*August2020 team thanks   Human Rights Center "Viasna"  for help in preparing the material.

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Kirill,a student
Alter: 18 years old
Die Stadt: Minsk
Wann: 10.08.2020

He was walking along Dzerzhinsky Avenue in a column of people

Inhaftiert in: In a bus, in Moskovskoe RUVD for 1 day
Ärztlicher Befund: Not available but there were impact injuries and bruises all over his body caused by truncheons, a dislocated knee, injury to the jaw
Folgen: The knee was set back in place by itself, the jaw still makes itself felt