All forms of torture or other ill-treatment are unequivocally prohibited at all times and in all circumstances under international human rights law. However, police officers use torture in detention centres across the country."
-- Nicola Duckworth, Director of Amnesty International's Europe and Central Asia Programme
A new Amnesty International (AI) report brings to light the practice of torture and ill-treatment throughout Russia. Beatings with fists, plastic bottles full of water, books, truncheons and poles; suffocation; electroshocks to different areas of the body are some of the means of torture or other ill-treatment. AI has been told are used by the police in order to extract confessions from detained suspects.
AI researchers have also been told by former detainees of a special room fitted with a metal table with wrist and leg restraints used for rape. These practices are in violation of Russia's national and international obligations and the report details the lack of convincing efforts to eradicate the problem.
The report contains numerous testimonies detailing a pattern of abuse. Lawyers are not present during questioning of suspects in detention, while relatives are not informed of their detention. Suspects are tortured by police officers or left at the mercy of convicts who do the torturing for the police and the victims are denied a medical examination by a doctor of their choice. Allegations into torture and ill-treatment are rarely effectively investigated and those responsible for torture and ill-treatment are rarely prosecuted.
Last year, Russian NGOs documented, with medical evidence, more than 100 cases of torture in 11 of Russia's 89 regions alone. These regions do not include the North Caucasus, where the incidence of torture is even higher.
Poorly paid and poorly trained police officers are ill-equipped to cope with a high level of crime in the Russian Federation. The easiest way to promotion for police officers is to "solve" as many crimes as possible. The approach to solving a crime is too often to extract a "confession". As a result, safeguards against torture are circumvented, often with impunity.
"Independent and impartial investigations and prompt prosecutions are the key to addressing torture and ill-treatment. The authorities in Russia, however, seem reluctant to deliver on these," Nicola Duckworth said.
It is the duty of the General Procuracy to investigate allegations of torture and other ill-treatment. However, its record is shown in the report to be unsatisfactory -- in 2005, according to Russian NGOs, official investigations found evidence of torture in only 33 out of 114 arguable cases of torture and, the year before, in only 47 out of 199. A key factor undermining effective investigations is the Procuracy's other role in the investigation of serious crimes -- investigations in which "confessions" may have been extracted by torture.
Russia has not fully cooperated with international mechanisms to prevent torture. Most recently, the visit of the UN Special Rapporteur on torture was postponed at short notice, as the Russian authorities failed to agree to the Special Rapporteur's terms of reference. This is despite the fact that, when Russia stood for election to the UN Human Rights Council, the authorities made particular reference in its pledge to "active cooperation" with the Special Procedures, and the scheduling of the visit by the Special Rapporteur on torture.
By ratifying the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Russia committed itself to allowing the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) access to detention centres and it has in general done this. However, Russia has denied the CPT immediate access to detention sites in the Chechen Republic and is the only country in the Council of Europe which does not regularly authorize the publication of the CPT's reports.
AI calls on the Russian authorities to establish a mechanism for unannounced inspections of all places of detention, including police custody and pre-trial detention centres, by credible impartial investigators. Signing and ratifying the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture would be an important step towards the establishment of such a mechanism. Amnesty International also calls for the improvement of the professional training of police officers, including in human rights protection.
Source: IMDC
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