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Andrei Ostapovich is a young researcher in Belarus when protests against Alexander Lukashenko broke out following the controversial presidential elections in August. He is so horrified by the beatings and torture of protesters in custody that he makes a final decision: Andrew leaves the country. He is one of hundreds of Belarusian policemen who have chosen not to defend the dictatorship and now live in exile in Poland and the Baltic countries.
Sitting on a park bench in Warsaw in the autumn sunlight, Andrei Ostapovich was lost in thought. He doesn’t see the couples walking in the park, the teenagers laughing, and the grandmother with her grandson feeding the ducks in the lake. With his distinctive cheekbones and olive green eyes, the 27-year-old could be mistaken for a model advertising Italian clothing. But Andrei is an exiled cop.
In fact, he no longer works and feels relatively safe in Poland. But when he decides to quit his job as a high-paid detective in the Belarusian capital Minsk this summer, Ostapovich realizes that he will have to leave the country immediately or risk being arrested by his own colleagues.
“I have been in a police uniform for the last 10 years.“But he told the BBC.” But after the August elections, I thought it was no longer safe to use it because of the way people were against the police. I was ashamed of the uniform. “
Raised in the Grodno region near the Polish border, Andrei’s courage and speed were first noticed when he was He’s only 15 and saves a younger boy from drowning in a lake. The local firefighters and paramedics were so impressed with his feat that they suggested that he would like to work for them after graduating from school.
But Andrei has other plans. After five years at the academy of the Ministry of the Interior, where he studied law and criminology, he graduated as a researcher. His career began with investigations into medical malpractice, and only three months after graduating he managed to catch a famous pedophile. Andrei soon became responsible for some of the most chilling and complicated murders in the country.
“The work was really exciting,” he said. “There were some interesting cases where the suspects thought they were elusive, and it was very exciting when we were still able to outwit them, it was like winning a game of chess.”
Ostapovich claims that it is there was slight political interference in his work as principal investigator. But as the elections approach, he is concerned about the arrest of the opposition presidential candidates, the banker Viktor Babariko and the blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky, even without solid evidence. And after August 9 come the protests against Alexander Lukashenko’s sixth term.
After work, Andrei still decided to attend the first rally. He had to seek shelter when the police began firing rubber bullets and stun grenades at the protesters. Twhat he sees with his own eyes, and in videos posted online, disgusts him.
Although he loves his job, he decides to quit. In five pages, the investigator describes in detail all the abuses he has witnessed, stating thatriot police “are the only ones causing violence” and claiming to have executed “criminal orders”.
Fully aware that he could be arrested, he fled across the border into Russia.
But very soon the Russian security services, the FSB, appeared at the door of his hotel room in the city of Pskov. “They handcuffed me and a ski mask covered in black,” says Andrei. “Then they put a dumbbell in the handcuffs, it was so heavy, more than 30 kg of metal. I thought they could throw me into the lake with that dead weight. When you can’t see, you have no idea what’s going on.”
The FSB agents, who never showed up, drove for four hours to the border with Belarus. They then stopped, pulled Andrei out of the car and removed his mask and handcuffs.
“The FSB tried to act like they weren’t involved in my arrest“, He says.” They gave me my things back and told me to hit the road. I saw Belarusian KGB agents approaching. Without delay I ran into the forest. They chased me, but couldn’t catch up, so I managed to escape. “
Dressed in jeans, tennis shoes and a T-shirt, Andrei seeks refuge among dense pine and birch forests, lakes and insidious swamps. He immediately discarded his three mobile phones so they wouldn’t track him. He brought no food except some chocolate bars and a bottle of water. He also has an accident: he slips into a swamp and falls waist-deep into it.unable to move my legs. Fortunately, he manages to grab some thick rods, but he needs all the strength to get out.
Then there’s a close encounter with a wild boar, “a huge fanged beast,” he says. “I managed to blind her with my flashlight and she ran away, but it was very scary to be alone in the woods at night.”
After 10 days of circling and desperate loss, Andrei finally made it to Poland, where he applied for asylum.
According to Yevgeny Yushkevich, a former senior investigative police officer in Belarus who is now in Lithuania, at least 350 men and women from the police and other law enforcement agencies have resigned in recent months. All are in danger and have had to leave the country.
But Andrei wants to go home. He is in contact with the opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who is also living in exile. Ostapovich hopes one day to help her end the culture of violence in Belarusian law enforcement. “The response to the protests is simply the most extreme example of a trend toward violence that has always existed,” he said.
“I think it’s kind of a herd instinct,” explains Andrei. “There are toilets in police stations that are used to wash blood; the floor is soaked with blood call the place near the sink the Wailing Wall. I don’t know if they think it’s all funny or not, but after doing terrible things to people, the police sat down to talk and laugh with their friends. It sounded like pure sadism to me. I know they enjoyed the excitement and adrenaline. “
Andrei added that many policemen and special forces had signed documents releasing them from responsibility for their actions, as they were supposed to protect the state during a crisis.
According to human rights groups, more than 19,000 people have been detained in Belarus to date. Thousands were beaten and some tortured in police stations and detention centers. However, the protesters devised a new tactic to deal with the perpetrators: they removed their masks and then, using facial recognition software, revealed their identities to the public.
However, according to Andrei Ostapovich, this tactic is not correct, because it could further enrage the police.
“They know they are bound by the current government and if it is overthrown, they will end up in court. When citizens start insulting the police by calling them.”inhuman and fascist“They are under constant negative pressure and are becoming even more aggressive,” he explains.
President Lukashenko seems to agree. Although he has hinted in recent days that he may resign, he recently warned some Russian journalists that if he falls, the country will fall with him, including those who defend him.
“The riot police and many others, like the guard sitting there,” he said, pointing to his bodyguard. “Why should they be blamed? However, they will be slaughtered, torn to pieces if they force me to hand over power.. “.
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