Coming home with @antecursor and @TanyaLokshina from Amnesty International+HRW mission in #Belarus. We were observing the protests and police action. A few personal impressions in this thread. /1

It wasn't my first visit to Belarus. I've been there many times including 2006 and 2010 elections (and subsequent protests), when I spent 15 days in jail. I've been deported three times from the country. Still, a lot of what I saw was unusual and surprising. /2

It looks like everyone is really sick of Lukashenka, at least in capital Minsk. I haven't met a single person who would support him, except police officers. Everybody around talks of election and protests, and of nothing else. /3

Police force, on the other hand, seems to be sincerely on the side of the regime, unlike Russia, for instance, and to hate the opposition wholeheartedly. Their brutality is more than mere execution of orders. /4

The vast majority of protesters are youngsters. On election night, it was dressed-up young guys and girls in festive mood who marched towards the Stele in Victory Park, only to be brutally attacked an hour later, cars were constantly honking in support. /5

We have seen not a single incident of even mild violence on the part of demonstrators. On the contrary, they would immediately disperse as soon as they saw OMON troops. The fear is great. Only the desire not to give in is stronger, so they keep coming back again and again. /6

The cruelty of police towards peaceful citizens is horrible and incomprehensible. A crowd is standing at a pavement, clapping and showing V-signs: police throw stun grenades and shoot rubber bullets at them. A few youngsters simply walk: OMON charges at them with truncheons. /7

We found a big collection of ammunition near Pushkinskaya metro, where one protester was killed: rubber bullets, flashbangs, blank Kalashnikov cartridges etc. Looks like a war zone, but in a very one-sided war. /8

In the evenings, police buses, unmarked vans and even ambulance cars drive around Minsk with half-opened doors. Masked men jump out of them to beat and/or snatch random people, mostly youngsters, in the streets. /9

We saw several times from our flat in downtown this scene: a van or a bus stops in the street, officers walk into a pedestrian subway and come back with "prey": some unlucky guys and girls. Then they move on. /10

Perhaps most shocking is the massive and systematic abuse of detainees in buses and jails. Men are stripped naked, forced to kneel and viciously beaten. Women are beaten too, insulted, threatened with rape. No water. No food. No doctors. /11

The regime strives to intimidate and suppress people by any means. It is partially effective: recent rallies were smaller than the previous ones; fear is growing. Given the lack of leadership, strategy and splits in the elite, I don't see any optimistic scenario for now. /12

I normally dislike references to "occupiers" or "punishers", but in the case of Belarus this description fits. You don't treat in this way anyone you have a slightest empathy for. I don't know how long one can rule a people that despise him, ot what's the point of it.

All photos here are courtesy Amnesty International. All thoughts are mine only.