Russian police tortures arrested youngsters ooo - 11.04.2008 00:17
A call to join a week of actions against police brutality 11th -20th of April 2008! Wrongful deeds of police do not surprise anyone in today's Russia. Disregard of law, violation of rights, illegal detention and searching are by now considered business as usual. 4th of April 7 peaceful young men were beaten up and illegally arrested by police in Moscow near Sokolniki subway station. These persons were not resisting arrest, as videos made by their friends and other eyewitnesses prove. The only thing they made to protest against the illegal arrests was merely forming a chain and demanding from police to abide laws. Due to this "crime" (which unlike actions of the police, does not contradict any law), the cops started knocking the guys down, beating them with batons, kicking them, using electroschokers and handcuffs, as if people in front of them were not innocent youth but especially dangerous criminals. During the following hours, cops were brutally torturing the arrested guys, 3 minors included, in the Sokolniki police-station. Arrested were beaten with batons, kicked, beaten with chairs, their heads were beaten to walls and they were given electric shocks all around the body, head and groin included. While torturing, cops lavished chauvinist and racist comments. One of the tortured guys got a heart attack from electric shock, but he was not given any proper medical care. When the parents of the persons arrested came to the station, cops told them that "nobody was even touched at the station" and all the injures were received in a street fight (which cops claimed in media they had prevented). Arrested did not got their property back, passport of one of the detained persons is still held by the police. All hospitals which were approached by the tortured youth refused to record wounds, as required by the law, as doctors learned that wounds were result of police brutality. This in order to make it impossible for the tortured to sue police. Apparently police has such a well-established pattern of "cooperation" with the health care system. Police also started criminal investigations against the tortured, statute "Violent resistance against a police officer" is a felony with a sentence of up to 5 years in prison. We are already aware that such practices happen in this (and many other) police stations, and not the first time. Many crimes are "solved" with such a way, as police is demanded a stable percent of solved crimes by their superiors, innocent people keep being arrested and are forced to sign testimony against themselves by torture. In most of the cases victims are afraid to sue police, as they are afraid of them and are certain that there is no way to gain justice through the system. Officials got used to all of this for a long time ago, and they are reigning in impunity. And more there are such cases, more confident the criminals in grey uniforms feel themselves. This Friday 11th of April in Slavyanskiy square of Moscow 7 PM there will be a big demonstration against police brutality, to support those tortured by police in Sokolniki police station and all victims of the police brutality in our city! We ask you to support a week against police brutality from 11th to 20th of April! We ask you to make a picket of solidarity or other action for victims of the police brutality in Russia at the local Russian embassy or in any other place in your city! Right now no-one is safe from police brutality in Russia. As the case in Sokolniky proved, whoever of us may become a victim of illegal acts from "defenders of the order". We want, that all this was not merely ignored! Write to our contact address acab.ru@gmail.com if you are interested to do any actions of support. Please also make photos and video from any possible actions! ### Story of one torture victim of Sokolniki police station (source: http://mars-morgana.livejournal.com/3337.html) It was a warm April day, and first thing I saw when going out in Sokolniki metro station was a clear spring sky. Little did I know that in less than an hour I would be both a witness and victim of most cruel torture. But let us follow the order of the events. Leaving subway, first thing I saw was a group of some aggressive things in Grey costumes, spitting verbal abuse, red from anger, pulling over subcultural youth, pushing them to to their machines. I immediately figured out that this this was unfounded police aggression going on, and as I am a socially conscious person, I stepped up for the people in trouble. When I asked of the reason for such a rude behavior towards people, which police was showing without providing any documents, they shouted me some extremely crude remarks. And at that point I saw that police was beating with aa baton a guy, whom I had just seen on a bicycle, and who was smiling and talking to a girl. I was not spending a second to a thought, but I ran to defend him from the beating. So I found myself inside a police car, and I was taken to police station of Sokolniki (although right now I think that it would be more appropriate to call it police station of SSokolniki). Immediately I asked the officer currently in guard of the station to make a protocol of my arrest and explain reason of my arrest, and I was immediately shouted some extreme abuse. With stupid smile on his face, the current guard say that "ya'll be about killed now", and "ya smartass will get some special treatment". My handcuffs were so tight, that already at this point my hands were blue and were not moving anymore. I asked this thing in a grey form politely to relax them a bit, as a response he started to hit my head to the wall. "Long tongue will crush your forehead", but me, an idiot, still thought that torture is not method of 21st century, when we have both TV and advertisement! At this moment, a huge steamed hog rushed in, filling the space with his breath which smelled like rotten dump of a vegetable market, and he began to scream that "today he will have some party time!". He was followed by other things from the same pack, and some good old violence began - everyone was beaten brutally, but in the same time carefully, in order not to leave any marks. But this was just the beginning.... I was standing my face to the wall, and hearing a scream from pain, I turned around. And immediately, I felt a series of hits in my head, accompanied with a shout "what the fuck are you turning faggot?!", after which I was tripped up and then Nazis in uniforms went on beating me when I was lying on the ground, they were screaming from joy. But what was unbearable, it was not pain from the hits - what was unbearable was to hear screams of pain of young kids behind me. But as I wrote already, this was just the beginning. >From middle of the blunt noises of hits, I hear not less a blunt voice: "what the fuck are you beating smartass here, go grab him to that fucking cabinet, there is some space out there!". So those things took me up and dragged me to their "fucking cabinet". I raised my head and I saw police in plain clothes, and due to naivety given to me by birth or due to my stupidity I began to speak. What they were having going on was a huge mistake, that they are face of the law in this country, and how is this face behaving itself? Two pieces of meat (that was how his face looked like) distance themselves from each other from between them a yell "you faggot should figure out that I am the boss!!!". I answered that I do not understand point in question, and I pointed them out statute 51st of the Russian constitution (which gives right not to give testimony against oneself - translator). They answered by shouting "EEE!!!" and delivering me another series of strikes. Then officers grabbed my pack, and opening it up rowdily, they found what? Books! And surprisingly, they could not only figure out that they were of different color, but they were even able to figure out their titles - first one, according to their words, was written by "bloody kike Schopenhauer", and second one by Yuri Fyodorovich Orlov, a dissident and human rights activist, as ugly creatures figured out scanning through the foreword. For my shame, I had not yet read yet the second book, but all of its weight, together with mass of thought of Schopenhauer, I could feel in my very head when cops were beating me with the books I love. After this procedure, I attempted to say that books are for knowledge, not for beating people's brain out from their skulls, but these meat machines did not even let me finish as they carried me to the most distant room of this terrarium, and threw me to the floor. I heard shouts of the people, who were beaten in other rooms. I was in a shock. I did not had a chance to raise my head during the beating, and I felt pain due to the fact that I could not stop this insanity. Somewhere in the next room, beating up young punks, these cannibals put on song of Victor Tsoy "Mother anarchy". Some devil in uniform was shouting "You little bitch taste some sweet 1980's!". And suddenly, next to me, I heard sound of discharging electricity - next to me someone was tortured with electricity. I was given the first electric shock to my head, with shouts "So antifa, you like little furry animals don't you?". Next shock I got to my back. Sound of discharge and screaming from pain of totally innocent people I heard from all the rooms of the Nazi headquarter of the Sokolniki area. I already almost lost my consciousness, when two raised me to my feet and laughing and roaring "hit him to the balls with it" put the electric shock to my groin. Face of the man in grey was so happy - you may not describe it as unhuman happiness as officers in this police station were nothing like humans. It was something out from this world, from the very netherworld. He, or rather it, got immediate joy from seeing a man, a complete stranger to him, in extreme pain. I watched him to his eyes and lost my consciousness. I heard voices "Boom boom boom" - it was a pack of fascists in a Russian march. "Boom boom boom" - a baton beating up the remaining life from a homeless man. "Boom boom boom" - bombs falling on someone's house. "Boom boom boom".... it is... it is... me gaining my consciousness on the concrete floor, and I understood that "Boom boom boom" - it is my heart, which is burning and wants to burn my thorax (few years ago due to a wound I was given a diagnosis of pericarditis). I felt that my heart may not stand anymore discharging electricity, and I figured out that I was having a heart attack, and I asked Nazis to quickly call paramedics. But instead of this, they kept beating me up, but at this point I had stopped of feeling anything. I am not afraid of death, but at times I would like to live to see world peace. I am all serious, not joking. So I am here, lying on the floor, not any reaction to hits, and sadists started to think. They figure out, that at this point they should get rid of me somehow, throw me to some distant skid row in Chertanovo, or to some sewerage hatch or take me to a hospital. But as there were some 50 witnesses of my arrest, these bandits had to send me to a hospital, telling to paramedics that I was "a junkie who got an overdose". To my surprise, in hospital I was not given any help. I was hardly alive lying on a bench at the waiting room, some yellow-faced nurse was laughing to me and confirming me that I am just about to die. I tried to convince people around me, that I was a victim of police brutality, but I was just ignored. Eventually I was given a call, I called my mother and she took me home. My passport and my bag were left to the police station, as well as my Jew's harp on which cops stomped on. I am not bitter to this scum - with their behavior they punished themselves, but I believe that it is my duty to stop this horror for good. According to my friends and acquaintances, it was not the first time it was happening in that rat house. And how many more police stations like that we have? The next day my mother went to chief of the police station of Sokolniki to have my passport. After some discussion, he told her "What are you worrying about - next Monday will go to a court, he will be fined for a misdemeanor AND HE WILL NOT HAVE ANY MORE PROBLEMS". I would like to add, that in this state we have such a statute, number 286 of the penal code, that is "exceeding the powers of authorities, resulting to violent violation of rights and legal interests of the citizens". Is it like that, or is two times two five after all? I am not making any calls for violence or hate, just writing down some facts that happened to me. (source: http://avtonom.org/index.php?nid=1697) |