English

Rights defenders alarmed by rise in police brutality cases

Members of a human rights group called Platform Innovation announced their plans on Thursday to push for a meeting with Interior Minister Ihar Shunevich to discuss an alarming rise in the number of police brutality cases.

Speaking at a news conference in Minsk, Platform Innovation leader Andrey Bandarenka accused the police of covering up the mistreatment of people by their officers.

Five people who describe themselves as victims of police brutality spoke at the news conference about their cases.

"In the past three to four months we made public a number of cases where police officers exceeded their powers," Mr. Bandarenka told BelaPAN. "In some of the cases police officers used torture, beatings, humiliation of people whom they arrested. We note that courts, investigators or prosecutor's offices do not seek to find the truth about what happened and punish the culprits. It turns out that not a single person is legally capable of protecting himself against arbitrariness and encroachment on his rights by police officers."

"Police understand that such facts are difficult to prove, that most people do not seek the protection of their rights. And they believe that they are free to do what they want and that all supervisory bodies will not conduct a check but will rather confirm what has been written in the arrest report." //BelaPAN