UN Says Torture, Ill-Treatment Of Detainees Continues 'Systematically' In Eastern Ukraine
According to RFE/RL, The United Nations said torture and ill-treatment of detainees in territory controlled by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine is happening every day.
Deputy UN rights chief Nada al-Nashif said on July 9 that there are “egregious violations” committed in the Izolyatsia prison in Donetsk and other places of detention in separatist-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine.
The violations “continue on a daily basis, and are carried out systematically,” Nashif told the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council.
Kyiv has been battling pro-Russia separatists in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions since 2014, when Moscow also seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. The conflict has killed more than 13,000 people.
The report highlights the continuing failure of the Russian Federation to uphold its obligations as the occupying power in Crimea under international human rights law and international humanitarian law."
Nashif was presenting reports on detention, torture, and ill-treatment in eastern Ukraine, as well as on human rights in Crimea.
The deputy high commissioner for human rights said the report estimated that since the beginning of the conflict, around 4,000 conflict-related detainees have been subjected to torture or ill-treatment in both government-controlled territory and separatist-controlled territory.
“There has been little accountability for violations committed on either side of the contact line. While we can count victims in the thousands, perpetrators who have been brought to account only number in the dozens,” she said.
Nashif said torture and ill-treatment was greater in the initial stages of the conflict and has decreased over time, especially in government-controlled areas.
“From late 2016, the use of unofficial places of detention to hold conflict-related detainees for longer periods, lasting more than a few days, substantially decreased" in government areas, she said.
However, she said the UN was still able to document cases in government areas of arbitrary detention of conflict-related detainees in rented apartments or hotels lasting up to several days before they were transferred to official facilities.
But in separatist-controlled territory, “a large majority” of conflict-related detentions amounted to arbitrary detention and this practice continues, she said.
“In armed group-controlled territory, detention during the initial stages of the conflict lacked any semblance of legal process and often amounted to enforced disappearance,” Nashif said.
