9/10/20
When big street protests broke out in Belarus after a disputed August 9 election, security forces seemingly doubled down with a "crack down first, ask questions later" approach that has left demonstrators with permanent injuries and which is still being employed to this day. The first week of protests was marked by extreme police brutality as thousands of demonstrators were rounded up, according to rights watchdogs. Detainees told of being subjected to torture at holding centers and jails, and reports of security forces beating protesters and firing rubber and even live bullets at peaceful protesters were common. Maria Zaytsava was seriously injured on the first night of the protests that began after polls closed in the presidential vote, which followed a wave of rallies nationwide in support of opposition candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya. The 19-year-old -- who had traveled from Homel to Minsk and joined the mass of demonstrators who gathered as it became clear that long-ruling President Alyaksandr Lukashenka would claim a landslide win -- suffered a broken eardrum from her close encounter with a stun grenade and sustained multiple wounds from rubber bullets, including one that left a hole where her temple used to be.
Zaytsava has been hospitalized ever since, and said that while her head wound was "stitched up pretty well and almost completely healed," she was still dealing with stubborn shooting injuries to her thigh. "I had two surgeries to remove dead tissue because rubber bullets cause necrosis," Zaytsava told Current Time, a Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA, on September 9. "This is not only true for me; many victims of the rallies had such problems." Looking back at the beginning of the protests, prominent rights activist Ales Byalyatski told the news site Palitviazni.info that "there was an order for violence and torture." "We can say that today in Belarus there is a duel between Good and Evil," Byalyatski, who heads the human rights group Vyasna, said on September 9. "It should be noted that Evil is well-armed and possesses the mechanisms of the state. They have weapons, courts, and law enforcement agencies," he added. "And on the part of Good -- only peaceful protests that gather hundreds of thousands of people, which is unprecedented in the country. And this struggle continues."
