Aliaksiei Tsioply: OMON beat my kidneys and legs

Activist of the civil campaign European Belarus Aliaksiei Tsioply has been released from the jail in Akrestsin street after the five-day arrest.

The activist shared with ffight.org the details of his detention:

- I was detained in Minsk close to Tsantralny supermarket. I was distributing newspaper Khartyia 97 (Charter 97) when two OMON soldiers approached and introduced themselves as Toryk and Yakimchyk. They forced me into a bus where other OMON soldiers were waiting. In the bus, they beat me – kidneys, legs. All the way to the Tsantralny district interior department the OMON soldiers were besmirching the European Belarus and Natallia Radzina (the editor-in-chief of charter97.org).

In the interior department, I didn’t get to see the detention protocol and wrote that I didn’t confirm it. Then I was taken to the jail in Akrestsin street. All the way there I was handcuffed as a malicious delinquent. Only one of the OMON soldiers who had detained me, Yakimchyk, was at the trial. According to his testimony, I showed resistance during the detention, but at the trial he said that I had only showed a verbal resistance, which means that his initial testimony was false. Judge Yasinovich knew that I had a lawyer who suggested postponing the trial, but the trial was held despite that. When I demanded the second witness to testify, the judge told me that the witness couldn’t attend the trial because he had too much to do at work.

Aliaksiei Tsioply said that despite the detentions, the activists will continue to spread information: ”No matter how the powers act, the people will learn the truth any way. And detentions won’t stop it. If they arrest one activist, five new will come and will stay there and distribute independent newspapers.”

We remind that Aliaksiei Tsioply was detained on 5 September close to the Kupalauskaia subway station when he was giving away issues of Khartyia 97 (Charter 97). Next day he was tried. Judge Viktar Yasinovich from the Tsantralny district court held the trial and found Aliaksiei guilty on article 23.4 of the Belarusian code on administrative breaches (disobedience to a legal order or demand from an official on duty) and convicted him to a five-day administrative arrest.