Public Inquiry into Torture at the Sovetskoye RUVD on August 9-13, 2020
From 9 to 13 August 2020, people who had been detained at peaceful protests in the center of Minsk were brought to the Savetsky police department. On a par with Okrestina, it is one of the most brutal places of detention. During those four days 400-600 people passed through the Soviet police department. The law enforcers took everyone indiscriminately — there was even an Israeli citizen among the detainees.
The detention conditions were so brutal that some of the witnesses compared the police department to a Nazi concentration camp. Here’s what people said:
- «… They walked around with submachine guns. It felt like being in a concentration camp. They were pulling the bolts of their guns and threatening to shoot everyone if anyone ran away».
- «There were a lot of people who were not just beaten, but maimed. They were dragged along the ground, by the arms, as if they were dead bodies. They were bloody. They dragged them aside, doused them with water, and beat them again. The screams were horrible!»
- «From time to time they would take me to the police station. They would turn on the camera and say, ‘You bitch, did you want to burn the riot police? You say, ‘No.’ Then they turn it off, start beating you. Then they repeat the question, turn the camera back on, and you answer accordingly: “Yes, I was there, I wanted to burn, I wanted to…».
This document is another public inquiry by the Legal Initiative and the International Committee for the Investigation of Torture in Belarus. Our goal is to investigate every police department. We want to clearly know what exactly was going on in the places of detention in early August and who was responsible for it.
For this investigation we have studied 52 stories we have documented. These are 568 pages of text and 137 pages of medical reports and documents. On the basis of these materials, we compiled a chronology of events and identified the security officers involved in the torture. You can find a list of photos and names of potential perpetrators at the end of the document.
The guilt of these people can only be proven in a court of law. We do not call for violence, nor do we pass sentence. Our goal is to show that sooner or later we become aware of every case of torture and ill-treatment.
We want you to know that we keep all the evidence. And we will not let the regime destroy it. One day all the perpetrators will be brought to justice, and our documents will help a fair trial.
We have documented 1,718 stories of torture in the last 3 years. We continue to document old and new cases, and we won’t stop until all the perpetrators are brought to justice.
You can support our work through the Patreon of our founders