"The police do this often"
| 16.12.2021 | Belgrade | No Name Kitchen | (44.8125449, 20.4612299) | Incidents | Apprehension | Serbia | no | yes | yes | no | no | 19 - 30 | 1 | Afghanistan | beating (with batons/hands/other), kicking, destruction of personal belongings, theft of personal belongings |
This incident took place before 13:30 on December 16th, 2021. The respondent, a young man from Afghanistan, was approached at the Belgrade bus station by two police officers.
"Where are you from?" they asked him.
"Afghanistan," he replied.
He showed them his bus ticket, which they proceeded to destroy. "The police do this often," he said. "And every time I have to buy another ticket."
The officers, one of whom was a woman, took him into a room where several Afghans, including minors, were already present.
"They beat me really badly," he said. They held him by the neck and kneed him in the stomach. They also punched him in the face and struck him on his right arm with a baton several times.
"I have so much pain in my head," he repeated multiple times during the interview.
One of the other Afghans in the room filmed the beating and called an acquaintance, who arrived a few minutes later. The man who had filmed the beating told the respondent that this acquaintance was German.
"He was not wearing a uniform, but he had an ID card around his neck," said the respondent.
The man who had taken the video showed it to the German, who reportedly said that nothing could be done and promptly deleted the footage from the phone.
In the presence of the German, the police officers began to beat the respondent again.
"The two beatings together lasted 4–5 minutes," he said.
Eventually, they let him go.