“MY HEAD WAS COVERED WITH A BLACK BAG, I WAS CHOKING AND SCREAMING WHILE THEY LAUGHED”, — in his final address Stepan Latypov spoke about beating and torture.

On August 12, Stepan Latypov, a political prisoner who used to live near the “Square of Change”, gave a moving final address in the court of the Sovietsky district of Minsk. Stepan spoke about his family, his great-grandfather who was sent before the firing squad in 1937 (the heyday of Stalin’s repressions - editor’s remark), about his own arrest on September 15, 2020, about the beating from the police, how he planned suicide, and what he expects from the verdict. Latypov is accused of creating a telegram chat for his block of flats, as well as a workshop where the protest symbols were made. He was also charged with resisting the police during his arrest. Moreover, as a director of the Belarbo company he is being charged with defrauding the clients while providing plant protection services.

During the trial, Latypov pleaded not guilty to all charges. Vladimir Rabov, the prosecutor, asked that the court deem Latypov guilty on three articles of the Criminal code and convict him to 8,5 years of a high-security prison, as well as a fine.

“On September 15, 2020, masked people took me into a van. They tied my hands behind my back, put a trash bag on my head, and took me away.<...> Then they beat me. Turned the radio volume up to the max and started beating me. I have never been so afraid in my entire life.

The masked men punched me, kicked me, and beat me with batons. All together and one by one. They twisted my hands and legs, hit my ears with their palms to make me feel as if a grenade exploded in my head. They hit my buttocks with batons, and hit in a way that doesn’t leave bruises. I was screaming and choking while they laughed. They said: “Let’s learn the alphabet, now we are asking you to say “A”, then we’ll move on to “B”. They said: “Stop screaming, your Tikhanovskaya won’t hear you”, but I kept screaming. I was screaming and thinking: “It is a good thing they got me, few of my neighbors would’ve been able to handle this”.

When the pain was especially bad, I remembered my mother’s words, she taught me to say to myself: “I’m a little hedgehog, and nothing hurts”. For a time it helped. But they [the police] were very experienced, they called me by name and didn’t let me disassociate.

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[Regarding the suicide attempt at the courthouse] It was painful. It was terribly painful and scary. I wanted to cut the jugular, couldn’t do it on the left, but managed to do it on the right side... Then I felt warmth with my fingers. I managed to hit the artery but kept cutting instead of going down the trachea…

Then the guard pulled my heel, I fell down and hit my head. It was painful, scary, and very embarrassing. Very embarrassing because my attempt has failed. And because back then I didn’t see many ways to protect my neighbors and relatives. <...>

I want to believe that when making a verdict, Your honor will use reason, common sense, life experience, and high-school knowledge. Understanding that the investigation wasn’t entirely interested in finding the truth.

I don’t know what will happen next. I don’t know the verdict and how much time will I really spend in prison. Reality shows that not everything is in the hands of the judge, in my hands, or in the hands of any of us. But I wanted to say one thing: I am who I am and I love all of you very much. And I can’t do it differently. I will protect you however I can. I consider it my duty. And I think that it can’t happen any other way.

Your honor, I spoke a lot about everyone and everything but my expectations for myself. What you say is less important to me than how you say it. I try hard to see you not as a judge but as a person, a citizen, a professional. This will help me avoid hating you and understand you as a person who, perhaps, is in a dire situation.”