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Former inmate reports beatings in Hlybokaye prison

A former inmate told reporters Monday at a press conference in Minsk that it was a usual practice for officers at Correctional Institution No. 13 in Hlybokaye, Vitsyebsk region, to severely beat inmates.

“People were constantly beaten up there during the seven months I spent there,” Yury Linha said.

According to him, in June, inmates demanded a meeting with the prosecutor general. In response, several initiators of the meeting were beaten up, including Mikalay Razuyew, who soon afterwards cut his stomach, Yury Kantsyava, a man whose alias was Chykin, and a young man named Ilya, who Mr. Linha said just missed dying of blood loss.

“What kind of reformation could be talk about if people were just being killed there,” said Andrey Bandarenka, leader of a human rights group called Platforma.

Alyaksandr Lukashenka once warned in an interview that many top-ranking officers of the interior ministry’s corrections department would lose their positions if reports of torture came true, Mr. Bandarenka noted. “Get trucks ready to carry your belongings away, as we’ll arrange for you to lose your positions,” he said. //BelaPAN