Watchdog

Alesya Yasyuk, an activist of the opposition Belarusian Social Democratic Party, complained to RFE/RL's Belarus Service on July 7 that the previous day she was subject to a brutal and humiliating treatment by police in Minsk.

Yasyuk, who lives in Barysau, a city some 60 kilometers east of the Belarusian capital, was arrested in Minsk on June 6 by police officers who found in her bag several stickers calling for a boycott of parliamentary elections due in September.

Yasyuk was taken to a police station where she was stripped naked by a female police officer, while two male officers filmed with a video camera. Yasyuk demanded that the cameramen leave the room, but no one heeded her. On the contrary, the police officers reportedly threatened to take her to a prison and put her into a cell with vagrants.

Yasyuk spent six hours at the police station and was released without any formal paperwork. She told RFE/RL that she was in a state of shock and called what happened to her at the police station a case of "torture."

Opposition activist Mikola Statkevich told RFE/RL that this year he was subjected several times to the same procedure following his detention during a protest in Minsk.

"I have an impression that the authorities came to the conclusion that the previous level of repression was insufficient and they decided to raise it," Statkevich said. "Therefore, they try to add psychological torture. So they will continue to strip people naked."

Sazak Durdymuradov, a frequent contributor to programs on RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service, has given his first interview after being released by Turkmen authorities following two weeks in detention, part of the time in the infamous mental hospital in the remote east known as the "Turkmen Gulag."

Durdymuradov said he believes he was released as a result of the international pressure placed on Turkmen authorities.

"A [security service] officer told me: ‘The whole world knows about you and is watching your [case], that’s why you must tell the truth. Go and tell the world whether you were tortured or not,’" Durdymuradov said. "I said I had not been tortured physically but there was a lot of moral pressure. A normal person was put in the psychiatric clinic. That damaged me.”

Read the full interview with Durdymuradov here.