Maria Antonova, an AFP correspondent, was arrested covering the opposition protests in Belarus. She was held for 17 hours before being released without explanation.
“Take her!” said a man in civilian clothing to several police in riot gear. Seconds later, I was kneeling with my hands on my head in a police van crowded with arrested Belarussian protestors.
I had been heading to my hotel, trying to make my way through scores of riot police after covering the demonstrations that saw tens of thousands flood the streets of Minsk to protest against President Alexander Lukashenko’s re-election.
Just before I had seen riot policemen sweep a young couple off their feet, swinging batons over the boy with all their might to the sound of his girlfriend screaming before both were dragged by hands and feet to the van.
After I was intercepted, flapping around my still unlaminated press card from the Belarussian foreign ministry did not help much.
“You are France Presse, so what are you doing here, go to France!,” one cheeky officer said after I was taken to the MAZ van, used by riot police and equipped with convenient slots for their shields and shelves for helmets.
Unfortunately for the 10 detainees, myself included, our place was on the metal floor, kneeling in a duck-and-cover position with our hands over our heads.
A careless movement to stretch out a limb, and one of the officers, sitting on the perimeter benches, would hit you over the head.
Most people, including an asthmatic young man who wheezed helplessly without his inhaler – he was just on his way to get it from his car when he crossed the path of OMON riot police – had to keep this position for the next two hours.
“We’ll toss your inhaler into the grave with you,” one officer told the young man helpfully.
It was clear that our van was one of dozens bringing people to a detention centre somewhere on the outskirts of Minsk.
Many were unloading and heading back to the city to pick up more people, though it was already 1 a.m., long after the rally on Independence Square had been broken up.
The OMON eventually brought me along with about 90 people back to a police station in central Minsk. Asking questions or that officers identify themselves, let alone read us our rights, was met with silence.
It soon became clear that at least a third of the group had absolutely nothing to do with the opposition rally.
Many were cursing at it for having disrupted their night. A man who stopped to ask a traffic police for directions to a nearest store. A woman who was closing down her hair salon for the day.
There we sat for the next 10 hours, in a basement with rows of chairs, a flat-screen TV, and a bulletin board with, quite randomly, various types of juice cartons tacked on for display.