English

Opposition activist in Babruysk beaten up for parking his car near police station to pick up disabled wife

 

A police officer in Babruysk beat up opposition activist Vyachaslaw Sheleh in Babruysk on Thursday night when he arrived at the city police department to pick up his disabled wife.

Mr. Sheleh’s wife was questioned on Thursday about a July 27 incident in which their teenage daughter was knocked unconscious and driven to a forest some 15 miles away from Babruysk. The girl had her clothing torn and her face daubed with black paint.

At 10 p.m., Mr. Sheleh arrived at the police station in a car and parked it in the empty police parking lot next to the entrance, knowing that it would be difficult for his wife to walk to the parking lot for visitors.

However, Police Major Andrey Barysenka immediately started banging on his rear window and accusing Mr. Sheleh of violating parking rules. As soon as the man got out of his vehicle, Mr. Barysenka attacked him with fists and twisted his arms behind his back. Arriving traffic police officers charged him with illegal parking and failure to have his car inspected at a vehicle testing station.

According to Mr. Sheleh, the local office of the Investigative Committee of Belarus has launched a probe into the incident.

“I don’t know whether it is connected with the kidnapping of my daughter, but I can definitely say that I haven’t seen such aggression for a long time,” he said.

A month before the abduction of Mr. Sheleh’s 16-year-old daughter, two athletic young men with shaven heads attacked her near her mother’s apartment. They pressed her against a wall, uttering obscenities and threatening violence if she did not stay home and shut up.

Mr. Sheleh believes that those men were not common street thugs, and that what happened to his daughter was an attempt to use her to make him give up his opposition activities.

Mr. Sheleh, a small business owner, was a member of Andrey Sannikaw’s campaign team during the 2010 presidential race. // BelaPAN