BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

01/04/2006

Protesters say police beat them

YURAS KARMANAU

Associated Press

MINSK, Belarus - Scores of protesters detained during opposition rallies were released Friday, with many reporting they were beaten and gassed by Belarusian police. The opposition claimed one protester died of injuries suffered during a beating.

Police seized hundreds of opposition supporters a week ago in raids on a tent camp in the capital's main square. The camp had been the scene of daily rallies denouncing the March 19 re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko as fraudulent.

Sergei Kalyakin, coordinator of the united opposition headquarters, told a news conference that Sergei Atroshchenko was brutally beaten by police and died of head injuries Wednesday.

Police refused to comment and officials at a hospital where Atroshchenko was believed to have been taken said they never had him as a patient.

Protesters released from detention Friday alleged they were beaten, gassed and taunted by police.

Kristina Shatikova, 30, left jail with a cap pulled low on her head to try to hide bruises on her face. "They beat us very hard in the trucks," she said.

She said police threw scalding water onto the face of a detainee and accused police of sexually abusing some female detainees.

Artyom Lukyanchik, 21, said he was put in a police bus with about 30 others.

"In the bus they made us lie on the floor, then they walked on our heads and beat us," he said. The police also forced people on the bus to say "I voted for Lukashenko," he said.

Source:

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/14236531.htm