Cameraman Uladzimir Luniou: ‘I didn’t belive we would get out of there alive’

‘Did you want a revolution? Now we will arrange it for you!’

Uladz­imir Luniou dwelt upon his deten­tion by riot police:

‘When the deten­tions start­ed, I was stand­ing near the ‘Sport-Tourism’ store in Pry­tyt­s­ki Street. I was wear­ing a vest, and riot police­men saw the “Press” inscrip­tion. I noti­fied five riot police offi­cers in hel­mets and with batons that I was a jour­nal­ist. How­ev­er, they knocked me off my feet and start­ed beat­ing me and shout­ing: ‘Did you want a rev­o­lu­tion? Now we will arrange it for you!’ They were con­vinced that I was a ‘rev­o­lu­tion­ary’ hired for mon­ey, and they beat me on my legs, arms, back, and on my head… Then the five of them ran on, but three oth­er riot police­men approached me. Then four more riot police­men came to me. The beat­ings and insults con­tin­ued, but I could no longer object or even move. One of the riot police­men start­ed shout­ing at me, forc­ing me to turn on my stom­ach, the sec­ond police­man ordered me to turn on my back, the third police­man forced me me to get up, the fourth police­man told me to get on my knees… I did­n’t know what order to obey, and I was dragged into a police van…’

A back­pack and a mobile phone were seized from the jour­nal­ist near the police wag­on. He recalls that there were already a lot of peo­ple inside, but the police­men shoved more and more peo­ple into the car. An elec­tric shock­er was used against one per­son, who could not fit and he was pushed to the police van with the use of bru­tal force.

‘You were sent to us to arrange the Maidan. We will kill you!’

Accord­ing to Uladz­imir Luniou, the ride in the police van took 30–40 min­utes. The car stopped in a prison yard, where the detainees were beat­en again. Accord­ing to the reporter, the riot police was beat­ing every­one, even the cit­i­zens of oth­er coun­tries.

‘A guy in a red T‑shirt was inter­ro­gat­ed next to me. Two female police­men, two plain­clothes offi­cers and an armed sol­dier with a machine gun were stand­ing near­by. The guy said that he was a cit­i­zen of Ukraine and had a res­i­dence per­mit in Belarus. He was imme­di­ate­ly clob­bered with the curs­es: ‘You were sent to us to arrange the Maid­an. We’ll kill you now!’ The guy was beat­en so hard that he could not get up.

Then they took me. They clob­bered and asked me who I worked for and how much I was paid. When led back, I could no longer step on one foot. One arm was also swollen, as the hands were tight­ly tied dur­ing the inter­ro­ga­tion. They guid­ed me to a room, took all my things from my pock­ets, my belt and laces. Then, I was brought into a cell, about 20 sq.m. A lot of men, 20–40 y.o., were already there. Some old­er peo­ple were there, too. All of them had been detained in dif­fer­ent parts of Min­sk. And all of them had been beat­en to vary­ing degrees. Mean­while, new detainees were brought up. Screams and bangs were heard in the cor­ri­dor. Quite a few peo­ple asked for water, but it was brought very rarely. The cell was over­crowd­ed.

Only those peo­ple who found them­selves near the wall could sit down, the oth­ers were stay­ing.   We were tak­en out into the yard and inter­ro­gat­ed again at about 3 a.m. Among oth­er, we were asked about the rea­sons of our par­tic­i­pa­tion in the ral­ly. Also, they want­ed to know who paid us. Then we were tak­en back to the cell. Those who were out­raged or sim­ply begged for water were tak­en out and beat­en. The staff screamed for a doc­tor from time to time, when they saw that some­one felt real­ly bad.’

The jour­nal­ist says that he heard about the deten­tion of his col­leagues. «We were film­ing a sto­ry from the polling sta­tion», he heard them say­ing in the cor­ri­dor. The col­leagues were also beat­en black and blue. Also, he heard human voic­es from some­where ask­ing to release them from cus­tody.  After that, some of the peo­ple were pulled out of the cells and beat­en again.

A lot of people covered their ears with their hands not to hear the screams

Uladz­imir Luniou recalls that all peo­ple around com­plained of pain in their legs, as every­one was beat­en with batons at the moment of deten­tion. Some­body suf­fered from an epilep­tic seizure in the next cell. Some peo­ple faint­ed. There were patients with dia­betes and hyper­ten­sion among the detainees, too. How­ev­er, med­ical care was pro­vid­ed at ran­dom with delays. It became cold in the cell in the evening. The peo­ple stood back to back in order to sur­vive. Some detainees suf­fered from tantrums and even hal­lu­ci­na­tions, caused by hunger and lack of sleep.

The detained peo­ple were trans­ferred to small­er cells on the fol­low­ing day only. There were 16 peo­ple in the cell where Uladz­imir Luniou was tak­en to. One could at least sit down or even lie down there. It was heard that new pris­on­ers were brought in every half an hour. They were beat­en, tor­tured, and humil­i­at­ed.

‘A lot of peo­ple cov­ered their ears with their hands not to hear the screams. All that con­tin­ued till ear­ly in the morn­ing. Then we were ordered to go to the cor­ri­dor, and some people’s sur­names were pro­nounced. These peo­ple were tak­en out. They weren’t noti­fied where they were tak­en to. The remain­ing detainees were brought back to the cells. After a while they start­ed shout­ing names again and I heard mine. We were gath­ered in the cor­ri­dor, it was already light, and traces of blood were clear­ly seen on the walls.’

We were warned that they would destroy us if they caught us again

Accord­ing to Uladz­imir Luniou, the detained peo­ple were tak­en to some premis­es, where a police­man was sit­ting at the table and police reports were piled on the desk. The police reports were filled in the sim­i­lar way – arti­cle 23.34, part 1, ‘…par­tic­i­pat­ed in the unau­tho­rized ral­ly, shout­ed ‘Long Live Belarus!’, ‘Shame on you!’, and ‘Stop the Cock­roach!’.

‘I wrote that I object­ed to the state­ment. I didn’t shout any slo­gans. I didn’t par­tic­i­pate in the ral­ly. Before releas­ing us from cus­tody some­body from police author­i­ties told us that they would destroy us if they caught us again or if there would be threats to the police or their fam­i­lies. He asked us if we got it. Few peo­ple replied that they did.

Gen­er­al­ly, all these events remind­ed me of doc­u­men­tary chron­i­cles about Nazi tor­tures dur­ing World War II. Every­thing was so severe and inhu­mane that I didn’t believe that we would get out of there alive. Also, I thought that they’d bet­ter bury us there alive, since we wouldn’t be silent. And the whole world would learn about the crimes against civil­ians in Belarus, who defend­ed their legal right to have a choice’, — the jour­nal­ist said.

Nei­ther per­son­al belong­ings nor doc­u­ments were giv­en to Uladz­imir Luniou at once. He was released in his prison cloth­ing. The pass­port was returned to the jour­nal­ist a week lat­er. He had to go to Min­sk again to get it.

Medical examination, Legal Investigative Committee, and the broken key in the keyhole

On return to Vit­sieb­sk, Uladz­imir Luniou went to the emer­gency room of the ambu­lance hos­pi­tal. Doc­tors tes­ti­fied numer­ous soft tis­sue hematomas and report­ed the fact of treat­ment to the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee.

The jour­nal­ist was sum­moned for inter­ro­ga­tion, his tes­ti­mo­ny was record­ed and he was sent for foren­sic exam­i­na­tion. A more detailed descrip­tion of the injuries was done there. Uladz­imir Luniou does not know the results of these inves­tiga­tive actions. Also, he doesn’t know the court deci­sion, which was to be pro­nounced dur­ing a tri­al ses­sion in Min­sk on August 21, as it was stat­ed in the police report. The jour­nal­ist decid­ed to ignore the tri­al, since he did not con­sid­er him­self guilty.

Uladz­imir Luniou told about anoth­er unpleas­ant inci­dent that hap­pened on August 29. He noticed that the lock on the door of his apart­ment was not work­ing in the morn­ing. Some­body insert­ed the wrong key into the hole and broke it, block­ing the journalist’s fam­i­ly inside. The jour­nal­ist can’t say for sure whether this inci­dent is con­nect­ed with his com­plaint to the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee against the police.