Rape, sexual violence, torture: UN report exposes Kiev's violations
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An OHCHR report finds that dozens of civilians were tortured in official Ukrainian pre-trial detention facilities.
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A Ukrainian soldier detains a Russian soldier in Kharkov, on March 31, 2022 (AFP)
The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) revealed in a report on Tuesday that the United Nations has recorded a significant increase in law violations by Ukrainian forces since the start of the war in Ukraine.
"Since 24 February 2022, OHCHR has documented a significant increase in violations of the right to liberty and security of person by Ukrainian security forces," the report read.
It highlighted that "out of the overall number of such cases, OHCHR documented 75 cases of arbitrary detention of civilians (17 women, 57 men, and 1 boy), some of which also amounted to enforced disappearances, mostly perpetrated by law enforcement authorities or the Armed Forces of Ukraine."
According to the report, dozens of civilians were tortured "in official pre-trial detention facilities."
"Of further concern, OHCHR has documented the arrests of several civilians involved in distribution of humanitarian aid" in territory controlled by Russian forces, the report added.
It also documented the use of 29 unofficial places of detention by Ukrainian forces, including "apartments, sanatoriums, basements of abandoned buildings, police precincts, basements and administrative premises of local Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) offices and other temporary detention facilities run by the SBU."
The report recorded "65 cases where Ukrainian State agents held detainees for periods ranging from several hours to 135 days in unofficial places of detention, including apartments, hotels, hostels, basements and premises of local law enforcement offices."
OHCHR explained that "the practice of keeping detainees in unofficial places of detention outside the protection of the law appeared to be applied to coerce detainees to confess or make self-incriminating statements, which occasionally were video-recorded."
It revealed that "Individuals told OHCHR that the stress and fear stemming from isolation and secret detention coerced them into confessing conduct they had not engaged in."
"Detention in unofficial places was often incommunicado. In 18 cases, detainees (12 men and 6 women) were held incommunicado from four to 135 days."
It continued, "During that period, detainees had no access to legal representation, were often subjected to interrogations that reportedly involved torture and ill-treatment, and were not informed of the next stages of their detention."
The report mentioned that "43 (34 men and 9 women) gave credible and reliable accounts of torture and ill-treatment of by law enforcement officers, members of the armed forces, or guards in unofficial places of detention or – to a much lesser extent – in official pre-trial detention facilities."
According to the report, 40 detainees "reported being tortured or ill-treated during interrogations, mainly during the period immediately following their arrest and prior to being brought before court and put in an official place of pre-trial detention."
"Methods included beatings, electrocution with tasers, sexual violence, including beating of sexual and reproductive organs, forced nudity, threats of genital mutilation and rape against detainees or their loved ones, threats of execution, threats with loaded guns of being shot in the limbs, and threats of being brought to the front line and abandoned there."
Elsewhere, "detainees told OHCHR that torture and ill-treatment were used to extract confessions or information, or to otherwise make the detainees cooperate, to extort money and property, as well as to punish, humiliate and intimidate," the report mentioned.
Read more: Kiev tightens censorship as frontline losses mount: The Intercept
