Окай Депрем. Фото: t.me/Ukr_Chr
Turkish journalist Okay Deprem, who had visited Belarus several times and praised the country for cleanliness and safety, calling it “the last real European country,” saw his latest trip to Minsk take a very different turn. He was detained, held for 10 days on Akrescina Street and deported.
Deprem is a citizen of Turkey and Russia. In 2014 he supported Russia’s actions in Donbas and lived for several years in Donetsk. Since 2023 he had appeared in Belarusian state media, giving interviews to Ryhor Azaronak and Kseniya Lebedeva, and received the third-degree Emil Chechko Award for 2023. In January 2025 Deprem came to cover the presidential “election” in Belarus and said he always left Minsk with “a good impression.” “I haven’t noticed anything bad here at all,” he told the BelTA agency.
Deprem’s most recent visit to Minsk was in September. He described his experience to several Turkish media outlets.
In an interview with Veryansın TV, Deprem said he arrived in Minsk on 8 September. On the same day, four plain-clothed police officers came to his apartment, “knocking on the door with their fists,” and entered without permission when he opened it.
“Without giving any clear or open explanation for why they came, they used mocking expressions and derogatory words. When one of them again, without my consent, grabbed my mobile phone, I reacted and reached out to take it back. At that moment another officer behind me put handcuffs on me,” Deprem said.
Handcuffed, he was taken to the Pershamaiski District Police Department in Minsk. According to Deprem, the officers mocked Turkey and Turks on the way.
At the station, Deprem stood handcuffed for three hours and learned that he had been detained over a “fabricated complaint.” He remembered the name of one officer who spoke to him — Hleb Sergeyevich Polyak. A person by that name indeed works as a senior officer in the anti-drug and anti-trafficking unit of the Pershamaiski District Police Department.
Deprem said he tried to give a statement, but officers interrupted him, mocked him and made several attempts to strike him.
He was released, but his passport and phone were confiscated, and he was told to return in two days. The journalist contacted Andrey Topaz, an aide to a Minsk City Council deputy whom he knew. Topaz advised him to file a complaint with the Interior Ministry’s Main Directorate. Deprem did so, and the ministry employee who accepted the complaint also recommended contacting the Investigative Committee.
At the Investigative Committee, an employee approached Deprem, took him outside and drove him to the Citizenship and Migration Department. There, officials told him he was in Belarus illegally and that a long-standing entry ban supposedly applied to him.
Deprem explained that he had given interviews to “the most popular television channels” and “best-known newspapers” in Belarus, had been invited to observe elections, and reminded them of the Chechko Award.
“They had nothing to say in response, and they even indicated they agreed with my words. Nevertheless, they still said they wanted to deport me from the country,” Deprem said. According to him, he was even relieved because he no longer wished to remain in Belarus “even for an hour.”
His bag with personal belongings was taken, and he was forced to sign several documents. He said he had a train ticket to Russia in 10 days, but he agreed to fly out that same evening.
In the evening, Deprem was told he was under arrest and was taken to a police station, where he was held in a cell for some time, then later transported to Akrescina during the night.
Deprem described what horrified him at the station: detainees were stripped to their underwear; police officers beat detained women; detainees were denied contact with families and embassies; and they were kept for hours in an airless police van.
At Akrescina, Deprem spent 10 days. He was first held with nine, and later with 15 cellmates — Turkmen and citizens of African countries. He noted that no lawyers or relatives were allowed to visit him or anyone else.
According to Deprem, one Turkmen detainee had been held without trial for a year, others for months. A Nigerian student had been detained for failing to renew his visa on time. He also met two detainees who “looked like Iraqis or Syrians” and told him Belarusian soldiers had shot at them.
Deprem described the conditions at Akrescina as “backward, primitive and terrible.” Six bunks were shared by 16 people, there was no shower, and the lights were on constantly.
“I managed to lie down somehow on a narrow wooden bench along the wall, putting a dirty mattress on it. … Since there was no table to eat at, most people ate directly on the floor. I didn’t even have a blanket. The place was infested with insects, especially bedbugs. Because of the bedbugs, most of us, including me, barely slept at night,” Deprem said.
He was also dissatisfied with the food: there was no coffee, and lunches consisted of pork meatballs. “They never asked whether a person eats pork or not,” he said.
“For the entire period I was given neither a towel, nor a toothbrush, nor toothpaste, nor clean underwear. I spent all the time in the same clothes I entered in, and I left in them as well,” Deprem said. He was not taken outside even once in 10 days.
The journalist said he had changed his opinion of Belarus. He had thought Belarus was “a more cultured and relatively European place,” but at Akrescina detainees were treated extremely harshly. He said he tried to respond “proportionately,” but his cellmates asked him to calm down so the whole cell would not be punished.
Deprem gave an example of collective punishment.
“A week after I arrived there, half of the cells were called out to shower. I said that I had no towel or underwear and reasonably asked that these be provided. The young guards began arguing with me and immediately used this as a pretext to cancel the shower for everyone and send everyone back to the cell. As a result, I was blamed,” he said.
On the eighth day, Deprem was called downstairs, given his bag with personal belongings and allowed to buy a plane ticket, but because his phone had not been found, the purchase was postponed. He was returned to the cell. The phone was found the next day. Deprem bought a ticket and contacted his family.
On the 11th day of detention, Deprem was taken in handcuffs first to his rented apartment, given 20 minutes to pack, and then to the airport for a flight to Moscow. At the airport, his belongings were returned, and he was forced to pay for his stay at Akrescina.
According to Deprem, the Turkish embassy began taking action a day or two before his release. At first the embassy could not determine where he was, then it sent a note to Belarus.
A week after leaving, Deprem learned that the Interior Ministry’s Main Directorate had replied to the complaint he filed about insults from police officers on the first day. The letter, delivered to the rented apartment, said that no objective evidence of the incident described in the complaint had been found.
Deprem is now in Turkey. “After everything that happened, and after the reactions of many journalists and media outlets in Russia, I became a bit cold towards the places where I lived for many years. Honestly, I need some time to recover,” he said.