| 20.7.2005 Torture in Russia A majority of Russians fear the arbitrariness of the country’s law enforcement bodies: those organs of the state which should be engaged in the fight against crime. On the occasions members of the militia do appear before a court on charges of torture, then a conviction is, as a rule, followed by a conditional sentence. According to a survey carried out in June by the Yuri Levada analytical centre on behalf of an organisation Public Verdict, 71.9% of those polled said they distrusted the militia and the courts. The figure is on the increase… The way the organs of law enforcement work is especially conducive to the use of torture. The main guideline for the militia is the percentage of cases “successfully” closed. The militia often catch people who were unconnected with the crime under investigation, as it can be difficult or even dangerous to catch the real criminals, and often prefer those detainees from whom threats and torture can produce a confession. Many thousands of people employed in the various organs of domestic power served in Chechnya, where they could ignore all laws and terrorise the local inhabitants to their hearts’ content. Returning to “civilian life” in Russia, they then use their “military experience” on the inhabitants of Russia proper. Public Verdict follows cases of unlawful violence against citizens by law-enforcement bodies. In most cases, torture is used to extract confessions of involvement in crime. In addition, torture can help to dissuade potential witnesses from offering evidence, or force people into unwilling cooperation with the law enforcement organs, or intimidate witnesses before interrogation. People are also tortured to extort money, or simply for no reason at all. Instruments of torture include pre-heated irons, gas marks to induce suffocation, handcuffs, alcohol, drugs to stupefy the detainee under interrogation, hammers, pistols to intimidate by simulating a shot, truncheons, chairs, poles, belts or electric currents. Such tortures were carried out on a detainee named Chernykh. He was picked up on 13 May last year and taken to a militia station near Kazan. The officers, including a functionary named Lyamzin, started demanding a signed confession. Upon the detainee’s refusal, he was handcuffed with his hands under his knees. A pole was then inserted between his knees and handcuffed hands, and with the pole held by the backs of two chairs, he was left suspended for twenty minutes. During this time his feet and buttocks were beaten by officers, and his head was forced towards his feet by use of a tightened belt. Then tumbled to the floor, Chernykh had his underwear lowered and a padded jacket forced over his head. With one officer sitting on his feet and another forcing his mouth closed, an electrode was pushed between his buttocks. Unable to sustain the torture any longer, the detainee wrote down everything that was demanded of him. To cover up their crimes, militia officers use various means, from falsifying documents to murdering torture victims and disposing secretly of their corpses. Victims of torture have in some cases died subsequently or been crippled. Such torturers are mostly to be found among investigating officers, inspectors, militia chiefs, even motor licence inspectors. Data supplied by Public Verdict suggests less than 40% of those found guilty in cases which make it to court were sentenced to periods of detention. The remainder received suspended sentences or were fined. The majority of the convicted were forbidden by the court to work for the militia for varying periods of time. Every third victim obtained compensation, but amounts involved were insignificant. The chairman of the Nizhniy Novgorod organisation Committee against Torture, Igor Kalyapin, is certain that Russian judges are privately instructed to issue suspended sentences to members of the militia found guilty of torture, rather than imprison them. The suspended sentences were no accident. This was proved by appeals to higher instances being unsuccessful. Mara Polyakova, chairwoman of the Independent Expert-Legal Council, a part of the International Commission of Russian Lawyers, notes that the State Prosecutor does not provide high-grade legal assistance to victims of torture. When the Prosecutor charged militiamen, this was usually the result of a compromise reached with the militia. Law enforcement bodies hand over a few employees: those who had not pleased their bosses. Boris Zolotukhin, a well-known lawyer, said the main reason for the use of torture spreading throughout the law enforcement bodies was the absence of political will to combat it. The country’s leaders have no personal interest in establishing order in the militia. They themselves are not threatened by torture. Until the day the leadership is replaced, Russians will have to fear the bandits in uniform more than those without. Dmitri BELOMESTNOV Translated Michael Garrood http://www.prima-news.ru/eng/news/articles/2005/7/20/32991.html eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 22/7/2005 Police officer, his relative shot dead In the village of Chechen-Aul, Chechny'a Grozny district, unknown people fired from automatic weapons a car in which were Anes Sultanov, an officer of the Shali district police department, and his close relative, Said Abubakarov. Both the men died, reported the Chechen Interior Ministry. Author: Sultan Abubakarov, CK correspondent Saturday July 23, 2005 World News - The News International, Pakistan Dozens flee Chechen village for second time NALCHIK, Russia: Dozens of residents of a Chechen village have fled to a neighboring Russian region for the second time in two months, officials said Friday, in what human rights activists said was an attempt to escape abuses by local security forces. Thirty residents of the Borozdinovskaya village fled their homes and crossed into the neighboring province of Dagestan on Thursday, settling in the town of Kizlyar, the Chechen president’s press service said. But Vyacheslav Burov, Kizlyar’s top official, said that up to 80 residents fled to his town on Thursday and still more came Friday, their makeshift tent camp now numbering over 100 people. Hundreds of Borozdinovskaya residents _ virtually the entire village _ spent two weeks in the Kizlyar camp in June after security forces conducted a brutal raid in their village, killing one elderly villager and leaving 11 others missing and feared dead. Chechnya has been locked in a separatist conflict for much of the past decade, and human rights groups accuse Russian forces and their local allies of repeated abuses against civilians, including kidnappings and extra judicial killings. But the June 4 raid pitted ethnic Chechens against ethnic Dagestanis, marking the first serious conflict between the two groups. Villagers blamed the raid on members of the Vostok battalion, comprised mostly of ethnic Chechens but subordinate to the Russian military. Residents returned in late June only after President Vladimir Putin’s top envoy to southern Russia, Dmitry Kozak intervened and Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov offered safety guarantees and compensation. Saigid Murtuzaliev, a Dagestani lawmaker who helped mediate the crisis, speculated that it was the slow provision of compensation that prompted the villagers to flee to Dagestan for the second time. Human rights groups, however, said Borozdinskaya residents were driven by fear for their safety. "In all of Chechnya I haven’t seen a place where people would be as scared,’’ said Svetlana Gannushkina, an activist with the Russian human rights group Memorial. http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jul2005-daily/23-07-2005/world/w6.htm 22.7.2005 The "Vostok" Battalion really was in Borozhinovsk RUSSIA, Moscow. According to a statement by the "Social verdict" foundation on 21 July an informed source from the Republic of Chechnya has put a photocopy of an official police document, relating to what occurred at the village of Borozdinovsk on 4 June, at the disposal of the Nizhegorodsk committee against torture, which is conducting a public investigation which took place there. As a result of an attack in Borozdinovsk several homes were burnt down, several inhabitants were injured, and 11 people went missing. On 20 July the Committee Against Torture received an official copy of the duty section of the Interior Ministry of Chechnya's communication records from the communication record book No. 535 of the 5 June 2005 (registered at 20.15). The document states that "On 05.06.2005 a message was received by the duty section of the Interior Ministry from the Shelkovsk Regional Department of the Interior Ministry that on 04.06.2005 in the period from 15.00 until 20.30 the "Vostok" battalion of the Ministry of Defence numbering between 70 and 80 people carried out a special operation in Borozdinovsk. During the operation to arrest or eliminate members of illegally armed groups the battalion, moving in 2 armoured personnel carriers, three armoured "Ural" cars, 6 - 8 trucks, and cars, arrested inhabitants of the village of Borozdinovsk on suspicion of committing crimes". There then followed a list of 11 surnames of missing people and an indication that while special operations were being conducted in the village for reasons unknown a fire broke out in the village, which caused fatalities. The circumstances behind these deaths are being established. The 11 people who in the official version were reported as missing were, in the communications report, detained in order to check their details with an Interior Ministry database. This document also states that their names did not appear in this database and confirms that all the material had been handed over to the prosecutor's office. News agency PRIMA-News [2005-07-21-Rus-06] http://www.prima-news.ru/eng/news/news/2005/7/22/33047.html |