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RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
RFE/RL (Un)Civil Societies
Vol. 3, No. 24, 12 June 2002
NGOS TACKLE TORTURE WITH HELP OF UN PANEL
By Catherine A. Fitzpatrick

Torture has not abated since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has only worsened. The testimonies of victims, human rights lawyers, and international agencies indicate that the old adage of Stalin's Prosecutor-General Andrei Vyshinsky, "confession is the crown of evidence," still holds sway throughout the post-Soviet criminal justice systems, as authorities resort increasingly to mistreatment in custody even as other social and political controls have loosened.

Increased international scrutiny and engagement, and new initiatives by NGOs, however, are beginning to have an impact. Five and 10 years ago, when the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) examined compliance by the newly independent states on the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment, they basically gave the countries a pass -- with a mild admonition to try harder, recognizing that these were "countries in transition."

By the third periodic reviews, however, with fresh activism by NGOs nonexistent a decade ago, and increased interest from liberal parliamentarians and the media, the free ride was over. In May, after hearing both official reports from government delegations, notable for their inadequate reporting and evasion, and some hard-hitting alternative reports from Russian and Uzbek NGOs providing a starker picture, CAT delivered one of its most frank and stringent critiques ever.

A coalition of Russian NGOs, led by the Nizhnii Novgorod Committee Against Torture, illustrated the power of the provinces to make themselves heard at an international meeting by concentrating on technical procedures. Joined by larger organizations with offices in Moscow including Memorial Human Rights Center, the Soldier's Mothers Committee, and the Committee on Civil Rights, the Nizhnii Novgorod group decided to use its own experiences in Russia's "third city" as a window on the entire criminal justice system and other institutions where abuse takes place, such as the army.

Out of a staggering nationwide system of nearly a million prisoners (the highest per capita number after China) they tracked just 70 cases of anguished torture victims over a two-year period -- persons caught up in abusive police investigation who were merely witnesses to crimes, or falsely accused of crimes, or even those found guilty of crimes, but who suffered unlawful treatment at the hands of the government. In each of the cases -- ranging from harsh and repeated beatings and sleep deprivation to notorious Russian torture implements such as the "elephant" (asphyxiation with the use of a gas mask) or rape with truncheons and electric shock -- the NGOs tried to compile information, file appeals, file paperwork again and again when it was lost, and managed to keep alive only a fraction of their cases. Only four reached the stage where the prosecutor charged police with torture; others are still pending, but 40 victims dropped their cases, losing hope.

Most frustrating were cases like that of the Varnenskii district Interior Directorate, where police were notorious for racking up some 19 cases of torture victims' allegations. A local prosecutor began a probe -- and then was himself fired for his whistle blowing. Those in uniform closed ranks, and the cycle began all over again.

The practice of brutal hazing in the army, known as "dedovshchina," also comes under the purview of CAT, as does abductions and disappearances -- torture both for the victim and the families who never find out their whereabouts. The CAT noted numerous "ongoing reports of severe violations of human rights and the Convention [against Torture], including arbitrary detention, torture and ill treatment, including forced confessions, extrajudicial killings, and forced disappearances, particularly during 'special operations' or 'sweeps,' and the creation of illegal temporary centers of detention, including 'filtration camps'" and also noted allegations of "brutal sexual violence are unusually common" -- despite recent orders to troops in Russia to stop such attacks on civilians. These orders are routinely disobeyed to date, as sweeps through Chechen villages such as Mesker-Yurt continue this month, catching up both young men and women, some of whom have been murdered or disappeared while in federal custody. Memorial issued a report claiming "malicious noncompliance with the orders," include the failure of troops to identify themselves, to notify relatives of detentions, or to permit the pro-Moscow civilian administration of Chechnya to be present at the sweeps.

As in past years, and as with other post-Soviet countries with torture and disappearances such as Belarus, CAT also urged Russia to form a new independent committee to investigation allegations, adding this year that it must be "credible and impartial" in part in response to the failure of a number of such bodies already in existence in Russia to compel prevention or prosecution of abuses.

With a new code of criminal procedures due to go into effect in July in Russia, a window of opportunity seems to be opening for change, in part promoted by officialdom itself. Deputy Justice Minister Yurii Kalinin himself told Interfax on 6 May that up to 60 percent of prisoners in pretrial detention are ultimately not sentenced to imprisonment, or are freed on rehabilitation grounds. This means that people were arrested without sufficient reasons, Kalinin said.

Also, Prosecutor-General Dmitrii Ustinov, in an annual report covered by "Rossiiskaya gazeta" on 30 April, unexpectedly admitted the negative influence of the Soviet-style system of rewarding law-enforcers for their performance based on the percentage of the number of crimes. He noted that despite 70 percent of all crimes being solved by police, "their efforts were frequently directed not to protecting the specific citizen who was victimized by crime, but to achieving a desired numerical figure for reduction in crime." NGOs added that such an incentive system also leads to the use of torture to force confessions in order to solve cases quickly -- at least on paper.

The UN torture panel urged Russia to draft a distinct article in the criminal code to identify and address torture. Even the conservative State Duma had taken some steps in the past to comply with the international recommendation, and yet they were blocked by a Kremlin representative, who sent a letter cited in the NGO report that such a move would "destroy the coherence of the Criminal Code." NGOs and liberal deputies also cited a Kremlin-ordered blockage of another law supporting unannounced outside inspections of detention facilities, a remedy endorsed by key figures in the Duma as well as law-enforcers themselves and Human Rights Ombudsman Oleg Mironov.

While the UN has no capacity to enforce the conclusions of its treaty bodies, NGOs say that bolstered by such validation of their concerns, gradually, their complaints are being addressed. "The Ministry of Justice has approved a government program to combat tuberculosis. Deputy Ministry Yurii Kalinin has promised that the grills over the prison windows which had kept out air will be removed," Andrei Babushkin of the Committee for Civil Rights told "Novye Izvestiya," which chronicled the NGOs efforts at the UN on 25 May.

Following up on the testimony of NGOs that not a single example seemed to exist of a court dismissal of evidence obtained under torture, the CAT urged the Russian Supreme Court to establish guidelines for judges regarding the inadmissibility of testimony made under torture. They also called for consideration of civilian review to scrutinize mistreatment of junior officers by each other or superiors, ending the closed circle documented by NGOs, where military commanders themselves decide whether and how cases are investigated, and military judges heed their signals to drop them.

Uzbekistan also came in for far closer examination this year at CAT, where for the first time, alternative reports prepared by NGOs were distributed, including from the Uzbekistan Legal Aid Society and others prepared with the assistance of "Ezgulik" (Good Deed) Human Rights Society and Memorial Human Rights Center.

Using unusually strong language, the committee called on the Uzbek government to review all convictions handed down since 1995 that were based solely on confessions, recognizing that they may have been coerced through torture, and "as appropriate, provide prompt and impartial investigation and take appropriate remedial measures."

As authorities in Uzbekistan have cracked down on thousands of devout Muslims active outside the confines of state-sponsored Islam, and NGOs have chronicled numerous cases of torture and deaths in detention, the CAT response is an important official condemnation from the international community. NGOs noted the well-known cases of Emin Usman, a member of the Union of Writers and former head of the Uighur Cultural Center in Tashkent, who died in February 2001 in detention from numerous wounds three weeks after arrest; and the death in June 2001 of Shovrik Ruzimuradov, the chair of the Kashkadar regional chapter of the Uzbekistan Human Rights Society, who was said to have committed suicide after three weeks of detention but whose body was discovered to have multiple injuries.

While conceding the need to combat terrorism and its international dimensions, CAT urged Uzbekistan to adopt "measures to permit detainees access to a lawyer, doctor, and family members from the time when they are taken into custody, and ensure that doctors will be provided at the request of detained persons, rather than at the permission of prison officials." The International Committee for the Red Cross and local NGOs have had only partial access to the prisons, and it is hoped that the impetus from Geneva engendered by such a review will strengthen their hand in efforts to humanize the brutal penitentiary system.

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