Brutalised Minsk: how Belarusian police beat protesters

Mediazona received access to data held by Belarus’ Investigative Committee. These data show that the minimum number of people who suffered violence during protests in August and September this year is 1,406. This is the number of people that the Belarusian authorities clearly know suffered violence from law enforcement officials. But despite this official data, the authorities are yet to investigate the violence, and not a single criminal case has been opened so far.

In this article, Mediazona shows how Belarusian law enforcement beats — systematically and with complete impunity — protesters. The text was translated by openDemocracy, and is published on their website.

“Everyone was on their knees, they kept on cramming people into the bus. And then the violence started. The riot police officer said that we had to get up as fast as we could, grab our things and leave the bus. And they started beating people until they stood up. One of them would hold someone while the other beat them. They were just beating and saying: ‘What did you want, bitch, change?'”.

This is how one resident of Minsk describes his arrest on 9 August — alongside thousands of others, journalist Alyaksei Khudanau had gone out to protest against Belarus’ election results after Alyaksandr Lukashenka had been declared the winner. Official results awarded Lukashenka 80% of the vote, but a significant number of Belarusians are sure that the results were falsified, and that Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the only independent candidate, is the real winner of the election. Other candidates were forced to either leave the country or have been arrested, including Tsikhanouskaya’s husband, the popular video blogger Siarhei Tsikhanousky.

The protests have not let up since. Every week, tens of thousands of residents of Minsk, the capital, and other cities come out onto the streets. In Minsk, the numbers of attendees have exceeded 100,000 — a huge figure for a city of two million. In response, Belarusian police have used riot batons and water cannons to disperse people.

The police response was particularly brutal immediately after the election, when masked police officers detained people across Minsk, shooting flash grenades and rubber bullets at crowds, beating people on city streets, police vans and police stations. Several people died amid the violence: a special forces officer shot protester Aliaksandr Tarajkouski dead in Minsk; in Brest, a plain clothes police officer shot Hienadz Shutau, a biker; and Mikita Kryutsou, a football fan, died in unclear circumstances in Maladzyechna (the official version is suicide).

The exact number of people who have suffered at the hands of the Belarusian police is unknown. Belarusian state agencies do not publish statistics on violent incidents involving the police, but as we have discovered — they do collect this information. Mediazona recently received a data archive held by Belarus’ Investigative Committee from an anonymous source. These data consist of several spreadsheets containing information about individual instances of police violence, as well as inspections concerning reports of torture. Analysis of these documents shows that the minimum number of people injured by Belarusian police during protests in August and September 2020 is 1,406 people.

Meanwhile, Lukashenka refuses to negotiate with protesters, insulting them. Instead, he constantly thanks the Belarusian police in his public remarks. “You have stopped this trash on the clean, comfortable [streets]  of Minsk,” Lukashenka said in late September. The Belarusian authorities have opened a criminal case into an “attempted coup of state power” by members of the Coordination Council, set up by the Belarusian opposition — of whom many have fled the country or are now under arrest. Ordinary protesters are also facing criminal cases. According to human rights defenders, 435 people are facing prosecution as a result of Belarus’ election campaign and the ensuing protests.

Despite the large number of injuries, the Belarusian authorities have not opened a single investigation into violence committed by police officers.

In order to read the investigation on Mediazona’s website and to access all interactive graphics, read here.

Why we trust this data presented by an anonymous source

Mediazona was already familiar with one of the documents in the archive — a spreadsheet of injuries inflicted by flash grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas. We had already received this document from a different anonymous source. Part of the records were accompanied by the names of hospitals in Minsk where injured people were taken. We showed this information to sources in Minsk City Hospital No. 10 and the city’s clinical emergency care hospital. In the latter, our data matched the hospital’s entire list of patients for that time, whereas our source in Hospital No. 10 stated that two of the people in our list did not contact them for medical treatment.

Many of the more serious cases connected to protesters’ eye injuries, amputations, comas and deaths have been described by journalists previously, including by Mediazona. Descriptions of these incidents matched information held in our archive.

We also checked information concerning beatings at Minsk’s Akrestsina jail against prisoner lists compiled by the Viasna human rights centre. The team also showed the documents to a source in one of the Investigative Committee’s central directorates. They confirmed the spreadsheets and other documents were genuine.

How we analysed the severity of the injuries

The Investigative Committee’s documents report medical diagnoses given to protesters, and from the majority of diagnoses it is clear how exactly protesters were injured. We have visualised these injuries via silhouettes representing each of the 1,406 people injured.

We categorised injuries by severity — light injuries (1), medium injuries (2) and heavy injuries (3). If part of someone’s body was not injured, we indicated it (0 points). We also analysed injuries in terms of how they were inflicted — beating, rubber bullets, flash grenades or gas.

We categorised bruising, contusions and light burns as light injuries; lacerated wounds, head injuries and multiple traumas — medium; and firearm wounds, internal injuries, broken bones and amputations — heavy.

With the average age of an injured person coming to 31, young men were most likely to be injured at the protests. The worst injuries came from rubber bullets and flash grenades.

Belarusian police aimed for protesters’ vital organs

Judging by injuries caused by rubber bullets (40 cases), it is clear that police officers often shot people in the head, chest and stomach when dispersing protests — and these weapons caused the most serious injuries. On 10 August, 34-year-old Aliaksandr Tarajkouski died from a rubber bullet shot to the chest — holding his hands in the air, he had approached special forces officers near the Pushkinskaya metro station in Minsk.

One 24-year-old protester received a rubber bullet to the stomach, leading to a hernia of the small intestine; another participant, a 37-year-old businessman, had his rib cage penetrated by a rubber bullet, causing damage to his right lung. Doctors diagnosed him with open pneumothorax, where air accumulates between the chest wall and lung after an open chest wound — which in serious instances can lead to a collapsed lung.

“I was in a coma for three days, but I was awake for a few moments. The doctors say it’s rare, but it happens,” recalled Aliaksandr Pastukhau, whose lung was penetrated by a rubber bullet. “I remember how they cut my clothes off. The doctors’ speaking when they tried to straighten out my lung during the operation. And how my brain was panicking: it’s sending signals, but my body isn’t responding. And it was terrifying that I could wake up with brain damage. It’s surprising that they shot from such a short distance at my chest. In a way, it’s good they shot me in the right lung. If they’d shot me in the left, we might not be speaking now.”

When police fired rubber bullets at protesters’ heads, they caused head traumas and broke facial bones. For instance, the data shows how a 40-year-old man wound up in hospital with the following diagnosis: “closed head trauma, concussion, multiple gunshot injuries to the right jaw.” His rib cage, stomach and left thigh were also injured. Another protester, 29, was hit by a rubber bullet, which smashed through his maxillary sinus, just behind his cheek, fracturing his nose. Another person was shot with a rubber bullet in the eye, receiving a serious contusion.

Vote selling network exposed by CIN reporters

Vote-sellers, Elvir Saletović and Sanel Pengić arranging a vote-buying with candidate Abdulah Iljazović
Photo: CIN

“You – BAM 1,300! I make a copy of the list (…) and tell whom to vote for. On the 13th you’ll get the list. You give 40 (BAM, author’s note). I’ll give it to a lad, you understand, I have two lads.”

This was the vote-buying offer the convicted dealer, Elvir Saletović, made to a young candidate of the Narod i pravda party a few days before the local elections in the Brčko District.

Candidate Abdulah Iljazović played the game, which will bring the vote-selling organizers straight into the police trap.

Posing as party activists, the CIN reporters organized a meeting between Iljazović and vote sellers. Following the exchange of short text messages, they met in a café at a gas station in Brčko. It all felt like a flawless collaboration: Iljazović will give BAM 6,500 and will receive 130 votes in turn, and Saletović and his partner, Sanel Pengić will find voters and charge BAM 50 for each. They will keep part of the money for themselves.

Iljazović decided to report the indecent proposal to CIN, and later to the police and the prosecutor’s office, and thus prevent the vote-selling that would get this candidate a mandate in the Brčko District.

Saletović and Pengić were arrested, and the Brčko District Prosecutor’s Office ordered one-month detention.

Election frauds are not unusual in the Brčko District. Police recently arrested three members of the Brčko District Assembly and five middlemen for conspiring to abuse of votes of at least 280 fellow citizens.

Residents of Brčko villages told CIN reporters that they knew the arrested, and some of them easily believed they would get jobs in public institutions in exchange for their votes. The arrested were mostly deceiving their family members or neighbors.

“People being people, they saw nothing illegal in it,” says Zekerija Mujkanović, the chief prosecutor of the Brčko District Prosecutor’s Office.

Election fate of BAM 50

Two weeks before the 2020 Local elections, Abdulah Iljazović, a candidate for the Brčko District Assembly, received a phone call from an unknown number. He agreed to the proposal and met Pengić and Saletović, both of whom are convicted of drug dealing. Pengić offered his assistance, claiming to have a buddy who sells votes in the elections, but Iljazović declined it.

“In the end, I told him that I would talk to an older colleague of mine (…) to consult with him about what to do.”

Abdulah Iljazović became known to the public when local media revealed that he had been convicted three years ago of possession and sale of narcotic substances. He claims it is now behind him, and all he wants is to take the burden off himself and prove himself to his family, friends and fellow citizens.

Iljazović called CIN reporters and in an agreement with them consented to record the second meeting with Pengić. Pengić showed up with Saletović, who was soon calling all the shots.

Saletović asked Iljazović to make a 1,300 deposit to solidify the deal. He indicated that he’ll bring him a list of people willing to vote for money. Pengić and he explained to Iljazović where they intended to buy the votes:

“As I told you, 100 of these, 20 Serbs and 10 Croats. These are all Muslims, 100 of them. These are from Srpska Varoš, Grčica, Dizdaruša. From the Centre, and you’ll have [votes] from the Centre. Then, you’ll have my [people]. Srpska Varoš, Grčica. This is Bijela,” said Saletović in the meeting.

Shortly after the meeting, Iljazović reported all this to the police.

“I found myself in a situation where I could choose to remain silent, but I do not want to be silent. We have been quiet so far, and this is where we ended up,” said Iljazović explaining his decision.

A few days later, accompanied by a CIN reporter, Iljazović handed Saletović a hundred and thirty 10 BAM banknotes as an advance payment for the purchased votes. Iljazović was expected to pay the remaining BAM 5,200 after the job is done.

According to the plan, each voter was supposed to get 10 BAM. Pengic wrote down the serial numbers of the banknotes in front of the candidate of the Narod i Pravda and CIN reporter. Each voter was supposed to take a photo with their mobile phone of the alled ballot with the received banknote next to it. That photo would have been proof of the job done, and in return, Saletović and Pengić would pay the voters the rest of the money.

Abdulah Iljazović, candidate of Narod i pravda, together with CIN reporters exposed the election fraud and thus rendered the incarceration of vote-selling organizers
Photo: CIN

All banknotes that Iljazović gave to Saletović and Pengić were marked in a well-planned operation “Voter” by the Brčko Prosecutor’s Office and the police to serve as evidence of election fraud.

On November 13, the day of the handover of the remaining 5,200 BAM, Saletović and Pengić were arrested in their homes. During the search of Saletović, lists with the names of voters and money were found.

A vote as a bail out of jail

Similar election fraud was plotted by other Brčko people as well.

Jasmin Ravkić was sentenced to three months in prison in mid-2020 for illegal logging, but he hoped that Pejo Mendeš, a member of Hrvatska seljačka stranka (HSS) [Croat Peasants’ Party] in the Brčko District Assembly, would have his prison term replaced with community service. This is how he earlier helped his cousin Raif Ravkić.

Pejo Mendeš, deputy of Hrvatska seljačka stranka (HSS), is the first among the arrested suspects of the 2020 Local election fraud
Photo: CIN

Jasmin, therefore, agreed with Mendeš to bring him data from ID cards of his neighbors and close family members so that Mendeš could abuse them for the upcoming local elections for outside BiH votes.

According to the plan, the political parties would have such false voters registered for postal voting from Serbia and Croatia to get the ballots. However, the ballots would not be sent to the registered addresses abroad, but instead at the parties’ headquarters.

“I have been there myself with him and Pejo Mandeš when they talked. He told Pejo: ‘Try to help and I’ll collect you 50 ID cards to vote for you.’ Do you understand?”, Raif Ravkić told CIN reporters.

In August this year, Jasmin Ravkić fraudulently obtained the ID details of at least 20 of his neighbors, including his parents. He told them that he needed them because he was collecting signatures for a petition to convert his prison term into community service. Wishing to help, they gladly shared their data not knowing that the data would end up on the voter lists for voting from Croatia and Serbia.

“He said: ‘Would you sign a petition for me so I wouldn’t go to jail for three months? Pejo Mendeš would save me from jail so that I can stay here and be with my children’. So I thought if that’s all that it takes, why not,” explains Sadija Čolić, a neighbor, how Ravkić, whom she has known since he was a child, fooled her, her husband, her son, and mother-in-law.

In Rašljani near Brčko, Jasmin Ravkić fraudulently obtained personal data from Sadija Čolić and her family to share it with Pejo Mendeš, who would then misuse it vote absentee
Photo: CIN

Sabina Zahirović, Ravkić’s sister lives with her husband Mustafa at the edge of the village. Mustafa’s brother, Šemsudin, and his wife are their first neighbors. Raif Ravkić and the four of them knew what the data from personal documents were supposed to be used for.

“He is my brother, and if need be, I’ll give it to Peja again to save him from prison.” Because it wasn’t a bribe, not for money, just a vote, simply to save him,” says Sabina.

Among those detained is a local businessman, Slavko Blažević, who collected other people’s personal data for his daughter, and Ljubica Ilić, a deputy in the Assembly. Ilić is a Deputy and candidate of Hrvatska demokratska zajednica BIH (HDZ BiH) [Croat Democratic Party of BiH] in the upcoming elections.

She refused to talk to CIN reporters. The president of the Brčko HDZ BiH, Anto Domić claims to be surprised, shocked, and unhappy because of these events. Claiming to be surprised by Deputy Ilić resorting to these methods of collecting votes, her party, as they said, will not be sanctioning her for now.

You give me ID cards, I give you a job

Every four years, citizens elect a mayor and 31 deputies of the Brčko District Assembly.  According to data of the Central Election Commission of BiH (CEC BiH), the number of voters from the Brčko District who registered for absentee ballot for this year’s election has doubled compared to the previous election.

“Shortly after the postal voters’ list for the 2020 Local elections was published, the citizens of the Brčko District started coming to the Institution, claiming that they were put on that list against their will,” said the president of the Election Commission in Brčko, Andrea Mrkonjić.

When the arrests began in early October 2020, other deceived citizens were calling in Brčko District Election Commission. More than 20 of them suspected that their names were on the ballots in Croatia and Serbia.

CIN reporters revealed that three deputies and one candidate were involved in the fraud. Radoslav Bogičević and Nenad Kojić, deputies of Narodni demokratski pokret [People’s Democratic Movement], and their party colleague and candidate, Stojan Bavarčić misused 114 personal documents of their fellow citizens, neighbors, and family members. They collected documents through third parties, in return promising them jobs.

In the village of Potočari, in front of a beautiful three-story building with a large garden, reporters met Kojić’s father-in-law.

„Nothing criminal about that, they are not criminals. They are honest people since they were born. But I do not know why they did it. They have always had votes from these people. (…) To go to jail now, after so many years,” said Ratomir Gajić trying to justify the actions of his son-in-law.

Petar Bogićević, a 30-year-old and disabled cousin of Radoslav Bogićević was promised a job in the Public Utility Company “Putevi” if he would provide Radoslav with a certain number of votes. Not knowing of the fraud plotted by his cousin, Petar collected documents from his immediate family members, relatives, and friends, thinking it would be enough to vote for the NDP and Bogićević. He did not know that these data would end up at a polling station outside BiH and that Radoslav Bogićević would be detained for three months.

On the day the lists were published, Petar was called by friends and family members, convinced that he had deliberately deceived them. He refused to stand in front of CIN cameras because he says, he fears for his safety. Unemployed and unprotected, with no possibility to stand up against fraudsters in power.

Peter’s mother Joka could not have imagined that a cousin could take advantage of her son in this way.

“Why my child and my family,” said Joka Bogićević through her tears. “Radoslav Bogićević is the first cousin of my late father-in-law, what else to tell you. He tricked him and tricked us all. His best buddies, friends gave him their ID cards. They did it for Petar, to get him a job.”

A deceived village

No one from the leadership of the Brčko NDP could talk to CIN reporters because the president of the Board, Bogićević, and vice president Kojić and Bavarčić, are all in custody. The Brčko District Prosecutor’s Office holds them suspect of forging documents, plotting election fraud, and accepting bribes.

The Chief Prosecutor, Zekerija Mujkanović told CIN that they wanted to stop further election fraud with these operations.

According to Zekerija Mujkanović, Chief Prosecutor of the Brčko District Prosecutor’s Office, the investigation against the deputies and other persons suspected of election fraud is to deter vote-buying in the next election
Photo: CIN

This year, 5,180 Brčko citizens registered to vote outside BiH. Four years earlier, there were half as many registered. This number of voters is enough to elect four out of the 31 deputies.

“It means four parliamentary mandates that can, of course, swing the government later, in one way or another,” said the president of Partija demokratskog progresa [Party of Democratic Progress], Mr. Siniša Golić.

Ujedinjena Srpska candidate, Neven Popić, found his name on the voting list from Serbia. He immediately addressed the Brčko District Election Commission with a deletion request.

“If such an anomaly had been noticed anywhere else – we are not talking about BiH –  there would have been no election and everyone would have been arrested,” says the head of the Brčko Board of Ujedinjena Srpska [the United Srpska], Uroš Vojnović.