Rights Group Reports Torture Of Detained Protesters Following Belarus Election - Statement

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th August, 2020) Testimonies from protesters arrested during demonstrations that followed the disputed Belarus election describe detainees being tortured or subjected to other forms of ill treatment, Amnesty International charged in a press release.

"Former detainees told us that detention centers have become torture chambers, where protesters are forced to lie in the dirt while police kick and beat them with truncheons. They described being stripped naked and subjected to sadistic beatings while listening to the screams of other victims," the release said on Thursday. "These are people whose only 'crime' was to take to the streets in peaceful protest."

The release included testimony from a woman, Katsyaryna Novikava, who said she was arrested on Monday while walking to a supermarket.

Novikava said she spent 34 hours at the Center for Isolation of Offenders, where she saw the entire yard of the facility filled with arrested men who had been forced to lie down in the dirt.

She also said she was forced kneel and listen to the screams of dozens of men inside the facility who had been ordered to strip naked and get down on all fours while officers kicked and beat them with truncheons.

Authorities in Belarus, as cited by US media, say 6,700 people have been arrested and at least one person killed in the violent aftermath of the election.

Thousands of Belarusians have taken to the streets since Sunday, when preliminary results showed President Alexander Lukashenko winning another term after 26 years in office with 80 percent of the vote.

Opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, whom many outside observers expected to win, has since fled the country, according media reports.