Three residents of Zhlobin, a town in the Gomel region of Belarus, were detained on July 31 for taking part in the 2020 protests. According to human rights activists, one of the men was released after recording the so-called “repentant” video. A week earlier, three people had been detained in Khoiniki and another two in Narovlya. During interrogations, they “confessed” that they were subscribed to “extremist” Telegram channels. Earlier, human rights activists reported a “clean-up operation” in Mozyr – at least seven people were detained there, including a minor. Police call them “extremists, Nazis, quasi-football fans and other unsavory elements”.

In mid-July, a wave of repression swept through the Brest region. More than 20 people were detained in Drogichin, eight in Ivaniv, where armed security forces raided homes with searches as part of a criminal case under Art. 369 of the Penal Code (insult representatives of the authorities). Human rights activists reported beatings, torture, threats, pogroms from detainees’ homes.

“Power structures have been a ‘nightmare’ in the Gomel region for a long time, periodically there are explosions of arrests, as recently in Mozyr, Khoiniki, Narovlya. These areas are closer to the border with Ukraine. The Belarusian authorities are trying to restore “order” there, intimidating the population”, observe representatives of the human rights center “Primavera” in the region of Gomel. They also say there is little information about detainees – their families rarely turn to human rights organizations, fearing harm to their relatives.

The telephone is a “tool of crime”

“I was walking around the city at night, when a colorful minibus came to me, security forces jumped in, surrounded me, started threatening and demanding access to the phone, which I, of course, provided. On one of the social networks, they found a news repost of an “extremist” feature for 2020. Their eyes immediately lit up when they saw the “wrong” person – one of the residents of the Gomel area, who recently served an administrative arrest, told DW on condition of anonymity.

Security forces took him first to the police department and then to the temporary detention center. According to him, people who were there said the police were “rolling around the city and gathering people”.

Relatives didn’t know anything about his whereabouts for more than a day. They were later told over the phone that he was not allowed to deliver the transfer – the state provides everything needed. At the same time, the man says that apart from the clothes he was wearing during his detention, he had nothing in the cell.

“I passed the “extremist article” (article 19.11 of the Administrative Misdemeanors Code “Distribution of informational products containing calls for extremist activity or promotion of such activity” – Ed.), therefore, while I was in the temporary detention center, my apartment was searched. They didn’t find anything, but they confiscated the phone as a tool to commit a crime”, says the DW interlocutor.

Armed arrest

Maria Kievets, 33, from Ivanovo, Brest region, was also tried under the same article. Although there were two minor children in the house, the woman was detained by riot police with weapons, according to the website of the human rights center Viasna. “Maria was immediately handcuffed, not even allowed to sit down, held at gunpoint. The house was destroyed during a search and they threatened to put the woman’s children on the register as being ‘in a socially dangerous situation’.

In Kievets’ social networks, security forces found several reposts of “extremist pages”, in connection with which three administrative protocols against women were drawn up. After the search, she was taken to the police station, where she was interrogated for four hours, demanding the Telegram password, threatening with “days” and that they would “put her in a bottle”. Then Kievets was placed in a temporary detention center, where she was stripped and searched in front of video cameras. In total, Maria Kievets spent six days at TDF. Then a trial took place, which sentenced her to a fine of 2,368 rubles (about 920 euros).

“Not to punish the guilty, but to intimidate society”

Brest human rights activist Vladimir Velichkin admits that the latest arrests in the Brest region relate to “planned” movements, according to authorities, of military equipment in Drogichin and Ivanovo districts. I can say one thing: the population of the regions has a negative attitude towards this (Belarus’ complicity in the Russian Federation’s war in Ukraine – Red.). Here, on the Belarusian-Polish and Belarusian-Ukrainian borders, people are closer to Europe, state propaganda does not work in these regions,” Velichkin notes in an interview with DW.

According to the human rights activist, among the detainees there are people who have never been involved in politics, but simply adhered to resources that the authorities consider extremist, or had the imprudence to speak out “unfairly” on social media. “When they are punished, for example, their neighbors see and are also afraid. The authorities’ objective is not to punish the guilty, but to intimidate society”, believes Vladimir Velichkin.