Mariana Katzarova, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Russia, dedicated her report, presented on October 29 at the UN General Assembly, to torture in Russia following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, reports AFP.
The report is based on an analysis of Russian legislation, reports from human rights organizations, and testimonies from Russian lawyers and Russians and Ukrainians who survived torture. Appeals to the Russian authorities went unanswered, Katzarova notes.
According to the Special Rapporteur, torture in the country has been documented over the past decades. However, after the attack on Ukraine, it began to be systematically applied to everyone, «who disagrees with the policies of the Russian authorities». This includes those who refuse military service based on their beliefs, mobilized individuals, and other military personnel who refuse to follow orders to fight in Ukraine. As stated in the report, there are at least 15 «unofficial detention sites» near the front line where «hundreds of people are held and subjected to torture for punishment». Prisoners are thrown into so-called dungeons or hung on trees without water and food. This is done by the military themselves against their fellow servicemen — other mobilized individuals who refuse to fight. There are many torture pits in both the occupied territories and in Russia.
Katzarova notes that almost all groups are vulnerable. Different people suffer from repression: journalists and politicians, musicians, doctors, students, scientists who spoke out against the war and against the authorities' policies. As noted in the report, completely innocent people fall under repression, for example, a person received seven years for posting a UN report on human rights violations in Ukraine during the war on their Facebook*. «Seven years are given for a poem, for a poster. It's very frightening. I'm not talking about Ukrainian political prisoners who face 20 years to life imprisonment», — notes Katzarova.
Ukrainian prisoners of war and detained civilians are a separate important topic of the report. As Katzarova reported, 29 Ukrainian journalists are held in Russia, and they are already starting to die, like Viktoria Roshchina.
In an interview with «Voice of America», Katzarova said that the Russian authorities do not report at all on the fate of civilian Ukrainian detainees in Russia. «We don't even know exactly how many there are, but we know for sure that they are subjected to torture, sometimes the most sophisticated, which have resounding names. When electric current is applied to sensitive parts of the body, it's called «Call a Friend». And most importantly — all these people have no access to lawyers, they have no access to the outside world. They are even held in Russian colonies separately from Russian prisoners, in complete secrecy», — reported the Special Rapporteur.
* The owner of Facebook — Meta is recognized in Russia as an «extremist» organization.