Human rights issues related to the suppression of the 2020 Belarusian protests

According to numerous publications citing witnesses and victims of the suppression of the 2020 Belarusian protests, the events were accompanied by extreme police violence and systematic violations of human rights on all stages of a detention process, including the widespread employment of excessive force and torture, medical assistance denial and rape.

[9][10] On 1 September 2020, in a statement by the United Nations Human Rights Office, more than 450 documented cases of torture and ill-treatment of detainees were mentioned, including sexual abuse and rape.

The male detainees were ordered to completely undress while lying on the ground, and, on several occasions, loud explosions were heard by Solopov; he believed these could have been detonations of flash-bang grenades.

One of the detainees had a flash-bang grenade put in his underwear, and the police officers who did it threatened him to pull the safety pin and make it look as if the man died from the detonation of a self-made explosive device, mentioning that they "will not have to answer for that".

According to a witness, a person suffering from an asthma attack had a foot put on his throat and threatened to be killed without any negative consequences for the police officers involved.

According to one of the former detainees, he was beaten to a point where he could not react to the reality anymore and, after it was noticed by the police officers, he was thrown on the concrete floor and repeatedly spilled with cold water, after which he lost consciousness and woke up in a hospital.

If "suspicious" items (such as medical gloves, respirators, knives of any size or even barrettes) were found in the detainees' personal belongings, they were beaten even harder, as they were considered by the police to be the "organizers" and "coordinators" of the protest.

The youngest of the hospitalized detainees was a 16-year-old boy in critical condition: the riot police had thrown an unidentified explosive device under his feet, rendering one of his thighs completely shattered.

[25] On 11 August, Artyom Vazhenkov and Igor Rogov, members of the Open Russia organization who had come to Minsk to monitor the election, were detained by the police and brought to the Okrestina detention centre.

Vazhenkov reported that each time the detainees asked for food or water or said they needed to go to the bathroom, they were met with verbal and physical aggression on the part of the centre's staff.

[26] According to one of the former Okrestina detainees, shortly after the detention, people had their clothes cut (including, in some cases, the underwear) and were numerically marked with a marker pen by the police, after which they were only referenced to by their assigned numbers.

According to him, the detainees were beaten there and threatened by police officers with execution by shooting, which they claimed they had direct orders to perform, and were allowed to sit only during a night for a total of 15 minutes.

A female former detainee who was transported to the Maskowski District RUVD reported that during the early stages of detention she was repeatedly beaten, accused of being a "protest coordinator" and demanded to name the people who paid her.

During interrogation by 7 police officers, she was demanded to tell who paid her for the subversion and at some point was knocked out of a chair, ordered to lay down and was beaten with truncheons each time her answers weren't considered satisfactory.

When she was transported to a detention centre in Zhodzina, she received food for the first time in three days and heard local staff referring to Okrestina as Auschwitz concentration camp.

[31] Sergei Dylevsky, a steel worker at the Minsk Tractor Works who helped take protesters released from detention to a hospital, recalled that one of them had lost an eye after being beaten at the facility.

Despite informing the RUVD staff about her condition and the emergence of a stomach pain, she was initially denied medical help and was threatened to be beaten and have her other child taken away by the government in case she didn't comply with the police' orders.

Presented with an alternative option of being set free in the morning after being transported to a local detention center and going through her trial, Malinovskaya agreed on a condition that she would not be beaten again.

After some time of this torture, which Malinovskaya compared to "something from a movie about the Gestapo", her body started to severely tremor, which frightened the guards and made them call an emergency.

Agents in civilian clothes, unofficially called "the quiet men" (Russian: тихари — tikhari[34]), not only arrested protesters in collaboration with the government troops, but also beat people, made operational video shooting and testified in courts.

[35][36][37][38][34][39][40][41][42] The employment of plainclothes police was admitted by the minister of internal affairs, Yury Karayeu,[38] while, according to Belarusian human rights activists, the only possible legal justification for such measures was special investigation activity.

If the police officers or troops found photos from the protest rallies or subscription to anti-Lukashenko Telegram channels, the inspected person could be detained and/or beaten.

[57] An election observer who was detained at the polling station, was convicted on the basis of the report claiming that 2 hours after the detention she was shouting anti-government slogans in another place in Minsk.

[58] In September, minister of internal affairs, Yury Karayeu, offered the Belarusian parliament to legalize such practice in order to increase the security of the policemen.

[63] Defense lawyers reported obstruction by the government officials and violation of their rights, including intentional concealment of their clients' location and unannounced beginnings of trials.