Riot policemen offer to burn activists in furnaces

The activists, who were detained at the Freedom Day rally on March 25, say about threats they heard from riot police officers.

Zmitser Drozd, an activist of European Belarus civil campaign, writes on Facebook about his impressions from yesterday's trials against the activists.

“The trial against Maksim Viniarski exceeded the worst expectations from our judicial system. 'Witnesses' in uniform always lie, but this time their lie was so flagrant, so funny, so silly that the author, who wrote the script of detentions and trials, would be booed and attacked with eggs if he showed this play on the stage. But he risks nothing. The verdict is known before the start of the trial regardless how funny the 'witnesses' play their roles,” Zmitser Drozd writes.

The former political prisoner writes about the evidence given by police officers.

“According to law-enforcement officers, after the rally, which allowed all activists to chant slogans they want and some used the rare opportunity and lost voices, Maksim Viniarski didn't remain satisfied and continued shouting in a dark yard of a block of flats. 'Witnesses' claim he was so involved in the process that he didn't react to numerous requests of riot police officers, who met him 'by chance' in the dark yard. They say they were polite and asked Maksim to go with them, but he told them to get off and resisted the arrest. Only imagine this situation: Maksim Viniarski in a dark yard said a riot police squad to get off,” he says.

Zmitser Drozd writes what threats the detained activists heard.

“The 'polite' policemen said in a police bus such people [those who came to the Freedom Day rally] should be burnt in furnaces and killed like mad dogs. So, Maksim Viniarski's question to the so called witness 'Don't you have scruples?' sounded rhetorical,” he writes.