Journalist Roman Protasevich is suspected of being tortured after being abducted during a flight over Ryanair over Belarusian airspace on Sunday. The 26-year-old himself had written about a year ago where he openly showed the brutal violence that Alexander Lukashenko’s regime inflicted on citizens.
It was his news channel that inspired hundreds of thousands of protesters to take to the streets against Lukashenko – many were beaten and dragged into police vans just on suspicion of taking part in the demonstrations.
Protasevich’s fearless cover-up as the editor at Nexta warned the world of the relentless beatings that were taking place in Lukashenko’s torture chambers. Kidnapped by the dictatorial regime, they suffered broken bones, broken teeth, bruising of the skin, electric burns, brain trauma and kidney damage.
Police at the time would keep people deprived of sleep for at least three days, during which time they were electrocuted and left in stressful and torturous positions. The ruthlessness was such that the video captured by a witness heard the screams of the victims echoing from the walls of the Minsk prison.
UN experts have recorded no less than 450 cases of torture as of September, and ten victims of violence have launched a legal human rights challenge against Lukashenko in Germany.
