According to Valery Borshchev, a representative of the Moscow Public Observation Committee (ONK), “the UN committee is interested in this information. Questions regarding Razvozzhayev are going to be given to the official Russian delegation as soon as November 12.”

Borshchev noted in particular that the committee had been informed of physical and psychological torture confirmed by the ONK after visiting Razvozzhayev in Moscow’s Lefortovo pre-trial detention center.

The activist, who is accused by the Russian government of organizing mass riots, says he made a false confession after being tortured for two days and told his children would be killed if he failed to comply.

In what quickly became an international scandal, Razvozzhayev was kidnapped in Ukraine last month after seeking political asylum and sent back to Moscow in a private plane. The identity of the kidnappers is unclear. On October 22, Moscow’s Basmanny Court sentenced him to two months in Lefortovo. His lawyers were not allowed to attend his court session.

The kidnapping came following a heavily criticized film aired on state-controlled television channel NTV called “Anatomy of a Protest 2.” The film accuses Razvozzhayev and two other prominent opposition activists of colluding with a Georgian parliamentarian to change Russia’s state leadership.

Krasheninnikov stressed that the suspects especially should have been released from the detention facilities (SIZOs) to allow for proper medical treatment because they presented no threat to society.

The statement comes a week after Russian President Dmitri Medvedev introduced a bill to reform how ill criminal suspects are treated by the country’s judicial system. If passed, a suspect or person charged with a crime found to have a life-threatening illness may be given alternative means of confinement to allow for proper medical care.

Russia is notorious for the deplorable conditions and corruption in its penitentiary system and the topic of the SIZOs has been a source of particular commotion over the past year. In November 2009, Hermitage Capital Management lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow SIZO after being held for a year without charge and after being denied necessary medical care. Then, this past April, Moscow businesswoman Vera Trifonova died in the same SIZO and also after being denied proper medical treatment.

Critics are skeptical that the president’s bill will do anything to improve the situation, as it essentially duplicates what’s already provided for in Russian law.

“The president isn’t proposing anything new; it’s written in the procedural codex that a judge should consider the condition of a sick person upon rendering a decision,” human rights advocate Pavel Chikov told the Kasparov.ru news portal.