Androsenka: I stood up for a guy and they started booting me in the face

Syarhei Androsenka, organizer of Minsk gay-pride and human rights activist, took part in the “silent” action in the capital yesterday. He has described his beating and detention to Euroradio on air.

Euroradio: Information about your beating appeared yesterday. How did it happen?

Androsenka: “I was detained when people started being driven away from the House of Trade Unions. I was probably detained for being very active, for being in the front line, if it is a good reason to be detained. I was made to get on the police bus and members of special police troops behaved properly.

However, they brought a guy there later and started beating him. They were hitting him on the back and I stood up for him and said that they could not do that. I was beaten even more than that guy for it… They kept booting me in the face. It did not end there. Policemen from the District Department of the Interior continued the tortures feeling their impunity. The policeman I had seen at the action made me go to a separate room and started hitting me on the neck and on the back, he hit me in the belly and asked me if I remembered him. He said I “had to pray”. He was probably implying at my participation in the action.


They threatened me that if I complained to the Office of the Public Prosecutor or got to Central District Department of the Interior again they would beat me until “my ass shitted”, - this is a quotation of the words pronounced by a policeman of Central District Department of the Interior”.

Euroradio: What will you do next?

Androsenka: "I will photograph the blows and prepare a complaint to lodge it to the Office of the Public Prosecutor; I should not leave it like that. Everyone who encounters violence should try to protect themselves with the help of the legal norms existing in the country, ask mass media for help and not be afraid to make it public”.

Euroradio: You were beaten, a guy was beaten before your very eyes, and there could be other beatings and not only in Minsk…

Androsenka: "Indeed. I saw a guy being detained near the House of Trade Union yesterday (it has happened before my detention). They guy was wearing a wreath and he started shouting. They knocked him off his feet, took him by the legs and hair (the guy had long hair). They dragged him this way – by the legs and hair…”.

 

 

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