Citizen Of Israel: I Want To Be In First Ranks Of Tribunal For Lukashenka Criminals
- 25.07.2022, 13:20
Aliaksandr Fruman is seeking a trial against the Belarusian strongmen.
Israeli citizen Aliaksandr Fruman went through harsh detention and a Belarusian prison in 2020. Once safe, he found all those who had detained and tortured him, and also witnessed the events. Aliaksandr told Belsat that he wants to be the first among those whose case against the Belarusian criminals will be heard by a tribunal.
Who is Aliaksandr Fruman
Aliaksandr Fruman was born in Belarus, but repatriated to Israel in 1998 and became a citizen of the country. In Israel, he served three years in the army, the marines, served in hot spots, the Gaza Strip. After his service he studied at the Faculty of Economics and Statistics at the University of Jerusalem. He works in IT companies as a data scientist - a specialist in processing large volumes of data and in-depth analytics. Married, has a son.
August 2020: a Trip to Orwell's World
Aliaksandr told Belsat how he found himself in Belarus in those August days. According to the interlocutor, he came to Minsk from Tel Aviv with his wife and seven-year-old son to see their relatives, visit the graves and go to Palesse, his ancestors' small motherland. This is what Jews call a "roots tour". The trip was not spontaneous - it had been planned for a year.
The arrest took place on August 10, when Aliaksandr and his wife were walking along Independence Avenue in Minsk and took a picture of a bus with the law enforcers on board. Unknown persons in black immediately ran up to him. The man was pulled into the bus, where they started abusing him and beating him with batons. When Aliaksandr asked to call the embassy, they insulted him and threatened to kill him.
Aliaksandr was taken to the Savetski district police department, where he was held for 16 hours. He and 61 other detainees were put in front of the fence, which became infamous as the "wailing wall": they were ordered to put their heads against the fence at the level of the stomach, hands either on the head or above the head, palms out, legs shoulder-width apart. Barbed wire was stretched between the legs and the fence. After a few minutes in that position the whole body would go numb. When someone tried to stretch, the policemen noticed and started beating him, recalls the interlocutor of Belsat.
Then the detainees were pushed into a paddy wagon and taken to Zhodzina. Aliaksandr vividly remembers the events of those days: people were piled up, some fainted, when someone complained, he was beaten with batons. The policemen, when they found out that Aliaksandr was an Israeli citizen, started making anti-Semitic jokes such as "we'll organize a second circumcision for you" and beat him up again. The man now believes that only thanks to his Israeli citizenship he managed to get free after 78 hours of detention - without a passport and a protocol.
"My whole body was bruised from the beatings. I saw half-dead people there. They were beating disabled people, women. One of the detainees, who was lying underneath me, lost consciousness, another one wet himself in fear. After I was released, I gave a lot of interviews where I told my story. I was well aware that I was a witness who could safely speak for others. This played a positive role for me psychologically. My work offered to pay for the services of a psychologist. Over time I have fully recovered, the bruises, the wounds have all healed. I had problems with my toes - they were numb and I couldn't feel them. But gradually that has recovered as well," Aliaksandr tells Belsat.
He calls the whole story a journey into Orwell's world.
"During my arrest I didn't feel fear, pain, but rather surprise and curiosity. The encouragement and understanding of what happened afterwards gave me the strength to fight on. I am a Belarusian now, because I have been baptized as a true Belarusian, I have gone through the Belarusian Golgotha. My glass is half-full and now I want to fill it to the top," he says.
A Thorn in the Flesh of the Regime
After his release he submitted an application to the General Prosecutor's Office of Belarus, where he described in detail what had happened to him, and asked to open a criminal case concerning torture, ill-treatment, and crimes against humanity. After a while he received an answer that they would not initiate a case. Aliaksandr then decided to conduct his own investigation.
"I spammed all the platforms where there are people involved in the power structures, specifically drawing attention to myself. Several people responded to provide information, even a current employee of the Savetski district police department and an employee of the Prosecutor General's Office. Cyberpartisans have also turned their attention to me. That's how I found all the people who had detained and beaten me. The Belarusian authorities are not ready to investigate, so I myself will be a thorn in their flesh, a stick with a rusty nail that will keep poking them until justice happens. If the current dictatorial regime falls, which I am sure will happen in my lifetime, I will have everything ready for justice to come. I have found all the policemen and riot policemen who were beating us, there are people ready to testify in a fair trial. I want to be at the forefront of the tribunal for these criminals," says Aliaksandr.
He has also written an application to the Israeli police to seek a travel ban against those involved in the torture and to declare them wanted by Interpol.
A New Criminal Case
After our interviewee found information about the security forces involved in torture, he disseminated information about them on the internet. Some people didn't like such active work - a statement was filed against Aliaksandr, on the basis of which the Investigative Committee of Vitsebsk opened a criminal case under Article 369 of the Criminal Code "Discrediting Belarus" and Article 203 of the Criminal Code "Illegal actions regarding information on private life and personal data".
"I let people know what kind of cats live near them. I became aware that some investigative actions were started in Minsk, they started interviewing people who knew me only indirectly. I used to have a flat in Minsk which I used to rent, but I have never seen my landlords, they know nothing about me either. Even they were summoned for questioning," says Aliaksandr.
He wrote an enquiry to the Investigative Committee to find out what was going on. The official reply specified the charges against Aliaksandr, as well as the contact details of the investigator. The man was invited to come to Vitsebsk to testify.
"I called this investigator, he begged me to come. I told him that the offer was absurd, it was like an offer to a partisan to come to the Gestapo in 1943. I invited him to come to see me in Israel, I was even ready to pay for his ticket - only because I was curious. He complained that it had been a year since they were allowed to go anywhere. I learned a little about this investigator from the cyber partisans. He was a regular law enforcement officer, had been a captain for 11 years, and had been abroad once in his life: in Turkey. I told him: You poor guy, now you have a cold case, what are you going to do about it? He replied that he would send a request to the Israeli police for me to be interrogated here. I can imagine the eyes of the Israeli police when they receive such a request," Aliaksandr notes.
He says that by now the whole world has understood what the Belarusian power structures and the current Belarusian authorities are like. Before the war in Ukraine, Belarus was perceived in Israel as a small dictatorship, which has no effect on anything in the world. Now Belarus is on the side of evil, and the Belarusian regime has become a problem not only for the Belarusians, but for the whole world. The rhetoric of Israeli politicians is changing.
"I can even say 'thank you' to the Belarusian enforcers for the new criminal case, because my story comes out anew, and I am a living witness of what happened in August 2020, I stay safe and can talk about it calmly. I am even glad that they are wasting their time on me instead of harassing the good honest Belarusians," says Aliaksandr.
At one time he had to refuse Belarusian citizenship. Now Aliaksandr hopes that if Belarus becomes free, he will be able to return it.
"I am a stubborn man, I'm used to finish things. When we were beaten and tortured near the fence of the Savetski district police department, I saw how other Belarusians were suffering. It really hurt my heart. I think that this evil must be punished. I saw everything with my own eyes, not in the videos on the Internet. Justice and fairness must prevail. My story came out in the media, so I feel responsible for not stopping. For now, I am fighting from a distance. But when the time comes, we will come back and spray-paint the columns of the Palace of Independence," Aliaksandr summed up.