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Barys Khamaida: Riot policemen threatened to kill us

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Barys Khamaida: Riot policemen threatened to kill us

The Viciebsk oppositionist has shared the details of his detention.

Viciebskenergo enterprise initiated an administrative proceeding against the legendary person for hanging white-red-white flags on electric wires. This took place after the detention of two oppositionists – Barys Khamaida and Jan Salaujan, who had a National flag found with them, the human rights center Viasna reports.

Both were detained in the evening in Ruba settlement near Viciebsk. The two activists of retirement age were detained by riot police, put down with faces to the ground, were beaten and threatened with being shot.

The information came from Barys Khamaida:

“It looked like an attack of some bandits. They wore mufti, shouted, threatened, one of them put something to my head from behind and threatened to kill… In the Railways district court they claimed that we did not submit to their demands, refused to say our names. It looked laughable: huge guys and us – I am 67 years old and Salaujan is a couple years younger. He got punched in the face with a foot when being detained… The judge Alena Cyhankova sentenced us to three-day arrests”.

During the time of the arrest it came out that there were more claims to the activists. They were summoned for interrogations and forced them to confess, “who of them was Miron”. Since the first day the Investigatory Committee started looking into it, Barys Khamaida says:

“Immediately as we were delivered to the Railways district’s police department, a person in the uniform appeared which had a writing “Investigatory Committee” on it. He took apart my mobile phone and took it with him. He did not leave any documents, just took it and that is it!”

A human rights activist Paviel Levinau believes it to be a very dangerous violation:

“There are no documents, it is unknown, who is now making calls from this phone. Someone may make a call, for example, about a terroristic act! Then Barys Khamaida will have much bigger problems”.

On 27 March Khamaida was taken from the isolation center for the inspection of his apartment, sanctioned by prosecutor Ramanouski. A document on that is the only one left by the employees of the Piershamajski police department. This is also a violation, Paviel Levinau points out:

“Barys Khamaida, having returned from the jail, spoke with me about these events. He said that there were no witnesses during the inspection, that the inspection took place in the both rooms of his apartment at the same time, and that a cameraman was filming the interiors, kitchen, hallway… I do not rule that that we may soon see it on Belarusian Television. Worst of all is that Khamaida did not get the protocol of the confiscation of belongings – white-red-white flags, a ribbon and a scarf. This is what he noticed. Probably, there was something else. Now, without a protocol, policemen may claim that they confiscated anything from him! They could also plant anything in order to “find” the next time. There were no witnesses! ”

They inspected not just what concerned the administrative case’s resolution, but whatever seemed suspicious to them”.

The resolution for the inspection of the apartment says that it is necessary due to the administrative case under the article 10.9 of the Code on Administrative Conduct. This is the article on destroying or damaging property on insignificant scale, and that the case was initiated by Viciebskenergo enterprise due to multiple cases of flags being hanged on electric wires.

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