Hell in the center of Europe: eyewitnesses described the horrors of the Minsk isolation center

The network edition Nastoyaschie Vremya published information about the so-called Minsk Center for Isolation of Offenders in Akrestsin Lane, which during the Belarusian protests became known all over the world due to the fact that protesters were brutally tortured and beaten there. Journalists of the publication interviewed former prisoners, who both told and drew the device of the most terrible detention center in this country.

According to Aleksey Valyuk, who was detained on August 10 and spent 4 days “on Akrestsin Street”, the security forces distinguished themselves with particular cruelty in the first days of the protests: unrestrained beatings and torture.

Excellent visual memory allowed Alexey to reproduce the surroundings of the isolator. For example, in his yard there are so-called "glasses" or temporary holding blocks with an area of 4x5 meters attached to the main building, which have a mesh instead of a roof and a hole in the floor instead of a toilet. There were held about 80 people, who only after almost a day in groups of 14 people were taken to the toilet. Needless to say, all the time of imprisonment (and this is more than a day) they stood close to each other, and only if someone felt bad, he could move to the wall to sit down there, or lie down for a couple of minutes in the fetal position. Above, they were guarded by guards with machine guns. The prisoners were led into the isolation ward along a corridor with a red stripe on the wall, which everyone remembered.

Another detainee, Aleksey Zolotarsky, recalls that once in the isolation ward, you need to do all the movements at a run so as not to get a painful kick from the guard. In anticipation of the search, one had to stand for an hour or more, facing the wall with his hands behind his back.

Journalist Katerina Andreyeva told how the women were searched: they had to strip naked, standing on the concrete floor, so that the attendants felt the whole body in search of "foreign objects".

All who have visited Akrestsin Street claim that they humiliated human dignity there continuously and cruelly. “This humiliation, this is undoubtedly a psychological trauma that remains with a person, especially if he was not quite ready for this”, - Andreyeva testifies.

The detainees did not even have basic hygiene products - a toothbrush and toothpaste, not to mention sheets and pillowcases: they had to sleep under thin, smelly blankets on thin mattresses thrown on iron bunks. “Not everyone is able to carry pads with them: programs are delayed, girls are left without hygiene products. For example, one of them had critical days in the evening, and she was told: “Well, in the morning the paramedic will come and give you a pad”, - says Andreyeva.

The worst of everyday problems was food and toilets - those very holes in the floor, in which you had to fulfill your natural needs in full view of everyone. Moreover, they had to eat under the stinking smell of feces, liquid tasteless porridge on the water with black bread, and sometimes fishcake with bones.

Needless to say, the only pleasant memory of staying in this hell is communication with inmates. Young people imagined that they were simply participating in some kind of reality show such as "House-2", and this saved them from despair.