Police violence, last seen on the 19th of October, has a long history in Belarus. In 1996 the first violent beatings and detentions of opposition activists during Lukashenka´s rule took place. Since then, thousands of people have faced beatings, fines and imprisonments, according to the registrys of Belarusian human rights organizations. (25-OCT-04).

According to the testimony of Yaraslaw Navumenka, who was detained in relation to the protest action of 19 October, protestors were “thrown down on the floor and beaten” in police busses. He said it at the trial, but the judge of Minsk Leninski Court Tserashkova paid no attention to his testimony on torture, and sentenced him to 3 days of arrest.

“Walked on”
Another detainee, a student at one of the higher educational establishments in Minsk, stated at the trial that in the bus they were thrown on the floor and “walked on”. This fact didn’t interest the judges either. The lawyer of the Human Rights Center “Viasna”, who attended the trials as the representative of the detainees, emphasizes that the judges refused to call witnesses of the defendants: 
     
Register
— We will register the facts of tortures, — says Valiantsin Stefanovich. – We will try to help people in writing complaints to prosecutor’s offices and will demand check-ups of these facts, identification of the persons who dealt with it and bringing of criminal cases against them. Besides, the names of these persons will be given wide publicity and transferred to the UN Committee Against Torture.

Violent beating
As a result of the violent beating by unknown persons on 17 October the journalist of the Russian TV channel NTV Pavel Sheremet got a brain concussion. The head of the United Civil Party Aliaksandr Liabedzka, beaten on 19 October, has broken ribs, cranial injury and kidney haematoma as a result of the police violence.