Russian anti-war protesters often face borderline “torture” when booked into police stations. They are subjected to psychological abuse and sexual threats, Mark Narusov, a protester who was detained by the Russian police for protesting the war in Ukraine, said.
Narusov said he, along with 25 other people, was apprehended after shouting “no war” outside a metro stop in Moscow. He said they were taken by bus to a police station 1.5 hours away and faced hours of interrogation.
“The police officers didn’t communicate where we were going, of course, didn’t read the Miranda Rights to us or anything,” he said, noting they were not physically harmed while on the bus.
“At the police station, they confiscated our phones,” and everyone who refused was put in a jail cell, he said. “The police officers took fingerprints, saliva testing, and mugshots,” he said, claiming that under Russian law it is illeal to do so to someone only being detained.
Mugshots are “particularly useful” because the Moscow subway system has “advanced face identification technology” to track and detain protesters, Narusov said.
“What happened next was borderline torture… There were police officers in civilian clothing who took each one of us in order for interrogation,” using techniques that could be “absolutely clearly classifiable as emotional abuse,” he said.
“They started calling everyone names, there were a lot of threats of sexual violence directed towards women” and even toward himself, he added.
“I was personally threatened with them putting me in an actual prison and then there being Dagestani cocks in my mouth,” he said. “One of the officers in civilian clothing even made sexual sounds” demostrating what would happen to him.
“I was one of the lucky ones… there are a lot of cases of violence happening during the interrogations, people getting hit. In our group of 25, one person was physically harmed,” and one protester was threatened to be killed, he continued.
All the protesters were scheduled for a court date, and Narusov said he received the lowest possible fine of 10,000 rubles ($90).
“When I had to explain why I went to the protest, I had to use the Orwellian term ‘special military operation,’ because one can not say war,” he said. Most of the people in his group got “knocks at the door” by police officers weeks later to “dissuade them from reoffending,” he said.
Protesting in Russia is becoming more and more difficult, as “the Red Square and many other squares in Russia are just completely blocked off,” Narusov said. Holding up blank signs, signs that merely say “two words” or signs that have stars instead of words will also get you detained, he said. Wearing green wrist bands or using a Russian flag without the red stripe — two anti-war symbols — will also get you picked up by the police, he said.
“I have lived in Russia for almost the entirety of my life,” and the media landscape has categorically changed “after the start of the war,” Narusov concluded. People can still use a VPN, Twitter, and Telegram to get independent reporting, but those in rural Russia are unlikely to access it. Nearly all news organizations not controlled by the Russian government were closed down after March 4, when Russia passed a law banning the publication of narratives contrary to that of the government. Offenders can face up to 15 years in prison.
Over 750 people have been arrested in Russia for protesting against the war.
