"After we were released, I asked the Pole, "Do you realise that we have become Belarusians?"
Marked with a red mark hit especially hard
Marked with a red mark hit especially hard
In August, Alexander Fruman, an Israeli, came to Belarus to show his son his ancestral homeland. The journey into the past turned out to be all too literal - as Alexander lay under the boot of a riot police officer on the floor of a police prison van, he recalled the year 1941. The brown fence at the police department, by which he stood for 16 hours straight, to this day remains clear in his mind’s eye. That August has changed Alexander and not only because of the flashbacks. In the cramped cell of Zhodino prison he fell ill with ‘belaruschyna’ (everything connected to Belarus). Now a white and red flag hangs from the balcony of his house in Tel Aviv, and Alexander has learned to sing ‘Mahutny Bozha’ (Belarusian hymn).
Alexander arrived to Minsk from Israel, he was detained and beaten by OMON (riot police) and later by the police in the District Internal Affairs Department
– I flew to Minsk from Tel Aviv on August 7. I am a former Minsk resident, I emigrated to Israel in 1998. Together with my wife and my son, we came to see our relatives, visit our ancestors’ graves and make a trip to Polessye, where my Jewish grandparents originated. We call it ‘a tour of our roots’. The trip was planned a year in advance, nothing was known at that time about the election in Belarus.
We rented an apartment in downtown Minsk, right next to the Circus. I spent half the night following the election on the balcony. On August 10, we went out for a walk and intended to get home before 5 p.m., because the protests were supposed to start at 7-8 p.m. It was unwise for a foreigner to participate, even though I supported the protest mentally and emotionally. There was a yellow city bus parked right in front of our building, with a large number of shields inscribed with ‘Militia’ (Police in Belarus) placed next to it. I thought it looked odd and photographed them with my phone. Then five or six masked men in black ran out of the bus - riot police or SOBR (Rapid Deployment Task Force). They charged at me, swearing and threatening me.
I immediately put my hands up, showing that I wasn’t resisting. They punched me in the face a couple of times. They said, "You were taking pictures with the intention to plot an attack on the bus." I even grinned at that moment. Afterwards, I kept thinking, "Why wasn’t I scared?" My astonishment surpassed my fear at that moment.
In the bus, they constantly threatened me, because I kept demanding the Israeli embassy be notified of my detention, "If you don’t stop ‘pushing for your rights’ now, you won’t get out of this bus in a normal state." One of the riot police officers said, "Now we will circumcise him one more time." I was still so naive at that time, I asked, "Are you anti-Semitic?" In the bus, there were just two guys from Brest region, they had come to Minsk to walk around, they even had return tickets. Then I saw how others were brutally detained, their hands were bound with plastic restraints, one of them was even handcuffed to the rail in the bus. The officers violently bullied a guy who hadn’t stopped his bicycle quickly enough. They were beating him severely and standing on his body, tied his hands and feet. They were accusing him of being involved in drug dealing. He had a small lock on his backpack, and they hit him a couple of times for that.
One of the riot police officers said, "Now we will circumcise him one more time"
– At one point they decided to let me go, "If you want to go home, delete the photos." But iCloud didn’t function, because there was no internet, and they became suspicious, "I don’t like you, you’re some kind of an Israeli spy, get back on the bus." My wife was standing on the balcony and watched me sitting inside that bus. That was our 'Seventeen Moments of Spring' (a reference to a popular Russian spy movie about WWII, a silent meeting of a Russian spy with his wife in a cafe).
At around 8 p.m., the prison vans arrived. The officers talked among themselves, "Let’s quickly transfer them into the prison vans, because big crowd is heading our way." They were standing on two sides forming a ‘corridor’, and they hit people with batons while they ran from the bus into the prison van. I was hit on the knee, on the shoulder, and one blow I miraculously avoided. Probably because of that, one officer wanted to punch me in the stomach at the entrance to the prison van. I somehow braced myself, and his punch didn’t work the way he intended.
– Ten of us were crammed into a four-person cell inside the prison van. We drove for 15-20 minutes, more and more people were added along the way. In one of the cells a woman was screaming loudly that she was having a heart attack, that she was short of breath - the police just laughed. We were brought to Sovetsky District Internal Affairs Department. Leaving the van, we had to run through the ‘corridor’ once again. 62 detainees were put up by the fence, with heads resting on the fence at waist level, hands either on the head or above the head with palms turned outward, feet spread at shoulder width. I had only seen this before in crime newsreels, when police arrested dangerous criminals. There was barbed wire on the ground running along the fence. If you lost your balance... A riot police officer would come up to each of us and hit everyone on the head with force, "Head down! Head down!" Later, in the cell, we constantly heard this phrase in flashbacks. When the officer approached me, I told him once again that I was an Israeli. He punched me in the stomach with a grin. I consider this to be an act of anti-Semitism.
There was a guy standing next to me whose arm below the wrist was so badly swollen that it was obviously broken. There was also a man with a lacerated shoulder. I had only seen things like this in the Gaza Strip.
They accused us of betraying our motherland, of being paid money - 150 Euros, 150 Dollars - different amounts were mentioned. They asked who had been born after 1994. There were a couple of people who responded, and the officers yelled, "You haven’t even sniffed the Constitution of 1994, why do you want it back? We have a very good country, and you’ve already trashed half the city today." From time to time, guys who turned their heads were beaten with batons. The amount of foul language was off the charts.
By the way, occasionally, we were loudly informed that we were in a highly restricted facility and that they were ready to shoot and kill without warning. It was surreal, like in a movie. The young guys would start shaking, you could hear their fingernails tapping against the iron fence.
He walked up to the guy with the broken arm, grabbed it at the place of the fracture, and slammed it against the fence with all his might
They started to record our belongings. I tried to be the last in the line. Maybe it wasn’t very nice of me, but I realised straight away that if they beat me, the beatings would be not as bad as in the beginning. I was lucky, since I had arrived a couple of days ago, I had a lot of cash in my wallet. And according to the rules, they have to record each banknote. Actually, they could have made me out to be a ‘puppeteer,’ but I was not Polish, so that probably stopped them. They were recording my stuff for half an hour, and all others were standing in the same positions by the other fence, while I was resting. But during that time I managed to see a lot of things.
The two Senior Officers were the only ones in the police department without masks. One of them was even wearing a smart white shirt. He walked up to the guy with the broken arm, grabbed it at the place of the fracture, and slammed it against the fence with all his might and yelled, "Hands above your head!"
I ran back to the fence; there was a man in a white shirt lying on the ground. I was told, "Step over him." Step over a man... He was lying there all night long, sometimes he sat up. Then the guys shared he had some problem with his spine. The guy next to me was constantly tossing and turning around, he was curious about everything. The officers were getting furious with him for that and beat him up. I kept thinking, "Why is he provoking them?" Then it turned out that he was disabled, mentally handicapped - a child in the body of a 20-year-old man. He didn’t even know how old he was. He was later sentenced to 10 days in jail, and I was outraged - he was incapable!
There was a woman who had been detained with her husband. (There is a video on the internet: he is being badly beaten and she attacks the riot police with her handbag.) She was the only woman among the detainees in the police department. Ok, we men stood there all night long... At some point she became hysterical, "I voted for Lukashenko yesterday, and today I am standing here, again I’m for Lukashenko!" At that moment, they realised it was better to let her go.
There was a guy standing not far from me, who had apparently had some altercation with one of the high ranking officers. He was delivered not in a prison van, but separately by the traffic police officers. At first, that high rank officer took him aside and beat him up badly, and then he told other officers, "This one should be treated in a special way." When we were given 1.5 liters of water between 62 people, a police officer passed him by. And when at 2 a.m., they started to take us to the toilet, one by one (there was a bio-toilet in the open air), they told him, "You are not going."
– My uncle, a Police Major, 20 years ago worked in Sovetsky District Internal Affairs Department, and his cousin was the head of Sovetsky District Internal Affairs Department. I told an officer that my relatives used to work there. He replied, "That was back in the USSR, those were the genuine times." I thought, "Oh boy, you were born in the ‘90s, you don’t even know what the Soviet Union was all about." They are so brainwashed there (in the modern police).
Then they took me aside, shined a torch on some printed report. "Tell me what I’m signing. What does it say?" "It says that you resisted the police officers when they tried to verify your identity." "I won’t sign this." The officer told me, "F.ck off", and sent me back to the fence.
There was an officer who pretended to be decent. He did not push me, he put his hand on my shoulder gently - this was encouraging. "Don’t tell anyone I’m talking to you. Whom should I inform that you are here?" "Inform the embassy." "Yes, according to the law we have to, I’ll make a call from the duty room." That was just a trick. Later, I learned from the embassy that no one had called them.
Around 4 a.m., those who were detained near the RIGA Shopping Center were brought in. The police officers called them ‘Surganovskiye’ (after Surganov Street were they had been detained). The officers then switched their attention to them. They began to beat them severely. I did not see this, but I heard those sounds. People were screaming in pain. The police officers were just enjoying themselves at that point. I suppose I was beaten up for form’s sake, but these people were beaten up because there was such an incredible ideological hatred towards them. Someone was tortured inside the police building because a couple of times we could hear moans.
It was the hardest moment in the whole story; they just dumped me on top of other people. It reminded me the stories from the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem
It was cold, about +10 C. I wore a T-shirt and shorts. At some point, we were allowed to sit on the asphalt. And after 10 minutes we started begging to be allowed to get up - the ground was so cold, it was impossible to sit on it. When the Sun came out, the asphalt got a little warmer, we were allowed to sit down again. The disabled guy was very restless. He was told to get up and stand against the fence. "I don’t want to, I’m not comfortable." And we were collectively punished - all of us were put back on the fence. But there was no anger or accusations against him - everyone understood that there was something wrong with him.
Within those 16 hours, I had so many thoughts. I thought about revenge, I remembered lyrics from songs to keep myself busy. Then we started whispering, then we started talking louder. I guess, the officers themselves had grown tired of bullying us.
– At about 11 a.m. prison vans began to arrive. The 'Surganova' guys were loaded first. The blows and threats could be heard coming out of the prison van. The riot police were particularly interested in people with tattoos and long-hair, and men with symbols on their T-shirts. We could hear phrases like, "These ones will not reach the destination!" Then they started putting us in the prison vans.
This was the hardest moment in the whole story; they just dumped me on top of other people, in order to squeeze 29 people on the floor of the van. My knees were on the floor, and my body was on top of another person. Someone was lying on top of me, too. I was lying on top of a guy who passed out. The guy on the left just wet his pants. It reminded me the stories from the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. The officers were constantly provoking, "So, you say, cops are assholes, cops are bastards?!!" For 20-30 minutes, they beat anyone who complained with batons. The officers stepped on my back with their boots in order to reach those who were farther away, and they did it so viciously, on purpose. Obviously, people were in so much pain that they could not help complaining. Throughout the trip, we ‘played’ karaoke - they made us sing "Changes" (song by a Soviet musician Victror Tsoi that was played often during protests) and Stas Mikhailov's songs.
Later we were allowed to sit more comfortably - on the floor. In Zhodino, there was a queue of prison vans, and we waited for an hour and a half to enter the prison gate. Then informal communication with the riot police began. Some of them were taking off their masks. I tried to draw parallels between them and the Israeli army. I had my last meal in the afternoon of August 10, around 2 p.m. Actually, I had no appetite, but they were eating right in front of us.
During the journey we were threatened all the time. They were saying that some Article of the Criminal Code had been changed, and that all protesters would go to jail for 5 years, that in Zhodino prison we would be put in some kind of death cells and that we would be raped there, and, in general, we would be ‘buried’ in Zhodino. It turned out to be the exact opposite. In Zhodino, no one hit me at all.
The prison officers had red eyes, they were exhausted. In fact, they were the ones imprisoned, not us
I was astonished that the prison doctor didn’t even ask how the detainees felt. He just questioned the guys who had bruises on their faces, and gave out some aspirin. There were already six men in an 8-bunk cell when the ten of us were added. They had been there since August 8. We told them about the '80% result' (officials claimed that Lukashenko won 80% of the vote in the presidential elections), about what was going on, and we were so pessimistic. There was a Polish citizen among us - Kasper, a freelance journalist, a very smart guy. He was beaten up very badly for the sole reason that he was Polish.
The conditions in the cell were unsanitary, filthy. One of the guards brought us a rag; we washed the floor so that we could sleep on it. But the atmosphere was great, there was great spirit of solidarity. We made checkers and backgammon out of bread. We asked the guard for a pencil, and even though it was forbidden, we got a pencil as well as paper. Kasper and I wrote everything down in detail so we wouldn’t forget anything. We found some newspaper scraps behind the radiator - at least something to read. I was filling in my gaps on the history of Belarus between 1998 and 2020. We were discussing what Western countries should do to help Belarus. Sometimes we sang protest songs. And much earlier, in the yellow bus, we played word games.
The trials took place literally around the corner - if you went to the right, you get 10 days in jail; if you went to the left, you get 5. The only people who were not convicted were me and the Pole. Also, two men in military uniform with briefcases visited the Pole and asked him where he had been and what he had seen. They said that Belarus really liked Poles, and that they were sorry for the way he had been treated.
After 78 hours, at 9 p.m., the Pole and I were released. Before that, the guard said that they had lost my case file and my passport. We started to look for our belongings; there were six rooms stuffed with people's things. There were some interesting items there, like a bottle of vodka and a bottle of cognac.
I looked at the prison officers - their eyes were red, they were exhausted. The whole time I was in the cell, they were running back and forth looking for someone. In fact, they were the ones imprisoned, not us. When we were leaving, one of us was told by an officer, "Guys, don’t give up, we are on your side."
Kasper was immediately taken away by a Polish embassy representative. My embassy did not intervene at all, although a fellow journalist, my wife and my sister informed them. The embassy charged me 250 BYN (about 100 USD) for a new passport. Later, I posted a huge text on Facebook. I wrote it at 10 p.m., and at 8 a.m. I got a phone call from a Member of Israeli Parliament, who gave me the personal phone number of the ambassador in Minsk. In Israel, of course, my arrest made waves. The Belarusian diaspora in Israel is now actively trying to make the Israeli authorities react in some way. At least, they should condemn the Belarusian authorities, as three Israeli citizens have been beaten up.
Maxim Znak was sitting at the next table. It’s great that such people, not some ‘singing undies’, are considered to be celebrities
The guy, who had been released earlier, picked me up. First of all, we went to see the disabled guy’s mother. We reassured her that he was fine, we looked after him. We even washed him, because it was so hot and stuffy in the cell, that he was scratching and tearing his skin.
Afterwards, almost all of my fellow inmates from Zhodino prison came to meet in a cafe. It happened that Maxim Znak was sitting at the next table. We greeted each other. He said, "Every decent person should spend some time in Zhodino (prison)." Well, he himself is in Zhodino now. It’s great that such people, not some ‘singing undies’, are considered to be celebrities. At that time, I already started giving interviews, people recognized me in the streets too and shook my hand.
The bruises had faded away by early September. There were some huge ones on my thighs and buttocks - they hurt when I walked. There was a wound on my shoulder caused by a baton blow. Now I am going to consult a psychologist. Sometimes, I’m rude talking to my wife and son. I used to be able to spend hours focused on a task, and now after 10 minutes I begin to check the news on Telegram. I often recall what happened. Sometimes, a feeling of guilt arises, "If I hadn’t taken the photos of those shields, maybe they wouldn’t have detained me.
After we were released, I told the Pole, "Do you realise that we have become Belarusians?" Earlier, when I was called a Belarusian in Israel I used to be offended. My mother’s family is from the Tambov region (Russia), the other part of my family is 100% Jewish. The Belarusians always seemed to me a bit infantile, so to speak. "We’ll put up with this Lukashenko a little bit longer. We’ve been living in a ‘Redland’ for 26 years - so what?" But in the cell, in the police department, in the van I met many people and I saw how they were ready to fight. I saw people who, despite such aggression and violence against them, continued to take to the streets every Sunday. Now I want to be a Belarusian. I have a white and red flag hanging on my balcony in Israel, the Belarusians gave it to me. Now I’m trying to learn ‘Pahonya’ (Belarusian patriotic song, historical anthem) and ‘Mahutny Bozha’ (Belarusian hymn), even though I’m a Jew.
P.S. ‘Lode’ Medical Center doctors reported Alexander’s injuries and hematomas to the police, as they should have done. Then he received a call from the Central District Internal Affairs Department. On the day of his departure, Alexander forwarded a written complaint to the General Prosecutor’s Office. Following his numerous appeals on their website and on social media, he eventually got a call from the Prosecutor’s Office. Now his case is being investigated. Also, Alexander intends to initiate a criminal case in Israel concerning the beatings and bullying based on antisemitism. It’s a matter of principle.
Alexander arrived to Minsk from Israel, he was detained and beaten by OMON (riot police) and later by the police in the District Internal Affairs Department