Investigative Committee of Belarus did not initiate a criminal case due to beatings and torture of detainees at protest rallies

The Investigative Committee of Belarus refused to open a criminal case on the complaints of 680 people about beatings and torture in the pre-trial detention center during the protests in August last year. About it informs press service of the department.

The collected evidence, including videos of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, indicates that law enforcement officers used force and special means “in accordance with the requirements of the law,” the department specified.

“The widespread <...> Telegram-channels statements about alleged abuse of office, expressed in torture, sexual abuse, have not been objectively confirmed”, – it says in the statement of the Investigative Committee.

According to the Investigative Committee, from August 9 to 15, 2020, more than 2 thousand people detained at the rallies were taken to the Center for Isolation of Offenders (CIP) on Akrestsin Street in Minsk and the IVS. On illegal actions of employees of isolation wards complained 680 people. The committee said that people wrote statements to use this fact “as a fictitious tool to obtain ‘political asylum’ in other countries.”

Mass protests in Belarus began last summer – immediately after the announced victory of Lukashenka in the next elections. His rival Svetlana Tikhanovskaya received only 10% of the votes on them, which is why the opposition accused the CEC of falsifications. Promotions tough dispersed OMON: used batons, tear gas, water cannons and weapons. Many detainees complained about the violence in the pre-trial detention center. For all the time of promotions perished at least five people. At the UN earlier reportedthat in the first month of protests in Belarus alone, 450 cases of torture of detainees were documented.