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.

A group of prominent Russian human rights advocates have penned a letter to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on the subject, asking him to take immediate action to put an end to the widespread use of torture in Russia’s detention facilities.

To the President of the Russian Federation
D.A. Medvedev

Message from members of public hearings dedicated to the problem of torture within law enforcement agencies and the penitentiary system

Respected Dmitri Anatolevich!

The prevalence of torture, physical and psychological, that happens in our country during both inquiries and investigations and also during detention has taken on a scale characteristic of a totalitarian society.

Medieval in nature, torture is used far and wide to obtain self-incriminating statements and statements incriminating others as well as for morally suppressing prisoners. Regardless of the changes in law and all reforms in law enforcement agencies, the practice of torture has been preserved and is even expanding.

We consider the current situation to be absolutely intolerable and feel that it demands joint action from both the state and civil society.

We are pinning our hopes on you, since it is precisely you who has repeatedly proclaimed that observing the principle of the supremacy of law is important and is the main guarantor of constitutional human rights and freedoms in our country.

We call upon you to issue a legislative initiative to change the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation so that it would preserve the testimony of accused persons given during preliminary investigations only in the case that it is later confirmed by the defendant in court. This would render the use of torture and forced testimony during inquiries and investigations pointless.

In addition, we call upon you to initiate changes to strip prison administrations of any motivation to use unlawful pressure against people in detention. With this goal in mind, limits on the actions of penal system operational staff should be introduced into the Penal Code of the Russian Federation. They should not have the authority to engage in illegal activities that are committed by persons outside of the given place of detention or which go beyond the punishment that the prisoner has been sentenced to. In this way, operatives will only work to prevent and put a stop to violations of the law that are planned or committed in these places of detention.

We call upon you to create a joint public and state commission to investigate incidents of torture and cruel and degrading treatment.

Such a commission should be created with the participation of representatives of state agencies and also the Presidential Council on the Development of Society and Human Rights, the Public Chamber of the RF, the Human Rights Ombudsman of the RF, a specialized committee of the State Duma of the RF, and specialized human rights organizations.

We members of the organizational committee for public hearings dedicated to the problem of torture in law enforcement agencies and the penitentiary system also feel it is very important to take part in the work of such a commission.

We are certain that, without your immediate interference, the problem of the expansion of the use of torture will definitively destroy the prestige of Russian justice and will undermind the faith of the Russian people in the law.

Hearing Organizational Committee:

L.M. Alexeyeva, representative of the Moscow Helsinki Group, representative of the head of the foundation In Defense of the Rights of Prisoners
V.V. Borshchev, member of the Moscow Helsinki Group
S.A. Kovalev, president of the Institute of Human Rights
L.A. Ponomarev, leader of For Human Rights
S.V. Belyak, lawyer
D.N. Dmitriev, lawyer

February 21, 2011
A.D. Sakharov Museum & Public Center

Wednesday’s roundtable was held under the title “Medical Aspects of the Use of Torture.” During the course of discussion, experts gave various accounts of how torture in the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service and the Internal Ministry, which controls the police, had developed into a social norm that the government is not interested in addressing.

Public Council member Andrei Babushkin addressed how torture was employed specifically within the police, arguing that young people who decide to work in law enforcement often get the impression that the results they desire from detainees are fully achievable by simply using their fists.

Andrei Mayakov, deputy chairman of the Committee for Civil Rights, brought attention to the established practice in pretrial detention facilities where detainees are intentionally denied medical treatment for any injuries they might have. Moreover, medical professionals working in these facilities often fail to report instances when they suspect torture is being used against a detainee, he said.

Whereas the use of torture is punishable in many European countries by a significant prison term – up to a life sentence in Great Britain, for example – its maximum term under the Russian Criminal Code is seven years in prison, the experts noted.

Public Council Representative and Moscow Public Oversight Commission head Valery Borshchev noted that human rights advocates had begun to carry out cell-by-cell inspections of detainees located in pretrial detention facilities after the deaths of businesswoman Vera Trifonova and lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, both of whom died this past year in the Moscow pretrial detention facility Matrosskaya Tishina.

Borshchev proposed that a special registry be set up in Moscow’s law enforcement agencies to record the circumstances of how cases of torture were allowed to occur.

“We cannot exterminate this evil, but it is possible to reduce it and make it so that torture ceases to be a norm,” said Borshchev.

Russia has been accused of using torture by a variety of international rights advocacy groups. A report in January by the United Nations blamed Russia for holding detainees in secret prisons that are meant to cover up the fact that torture or other ill-treatment is practiced in such facilities. Amnesty International has accused Russian law enforcement agencies of using torture both in the North Caucasus and throughout the rest of the country. Opposition activists and human rights advocates routinely report cases of torture by the police, and the Russian Internal Ministry itself has admitted that torture is used on a regular basis.

Konstantin Makarov, a member of the banned National Bolshevik Party, was an organizer for an opposition rally planned for that night in Voronezh, south of Moscow. He says that on noon Saturday near his home, he was forced into a car by two men in plain clothes, one of which was S. Yemkov of the Russian Interior Ministry’s Center for Extremism Prevention (Center “E”).

According to Makarov, Yemkov announced that “he got them” and that he would now be taken to a reservoir and drowned.

His face was then covered with a jacket and he was brought to a room in Center “E,” where his hands, legs, and the jacket around his head were bound with tape. After a while, several people including Yemkov entered the room. Yemkov stated that he had been very annoyed at an unsuccessful attempt to catch Makarov two years prior, and that the two would now be acquainted “to the extreme” (literally, “by the whole program”).

Yemkov also said that he and the others had been “given the green light,” and were therefore quietly going to kill both other oppositionists and their close ones.

At that point, Makarov says, other people in the room began asking questions pertaining to National Bolshevik leader Eduard Limonov, detained that same night, and his followers. In particular, he continued, the people were interested in the number of National Bolsheviks in Voronezh, who the local leader was, and who financed them. They were also interested in what party members Konstantin knew in other regions, particularly in Moscow. Questions were also raised concerning the financing for the spring 2007 issue of “Friend of the People,” a National Bolshevik publication.

Makarov says that upon refusing to answer questions, he began to be tortured.

He asserts that the men twisted his arms behind his back and strangled him. They also lifted and dropped him on the floor several times, and threatened him with rape.

After approximately an hour, the men said that Makarov would be beaten in such a fashion after every subsequent event held by the National Bolsheviks unless he agreed to cooperate with them. They demanded information about the National Bolshevik Party as well as other opposition movements in the city. In exchange, they offered to extend help to other detained oppositionists, as well as to help arrange rallies and protests “within reasonable limits.”

As a first cooperative step, Makarov was asked to say that he was brought not to Center “E,” but to the Leninskoe Regional Department of Internal Affairs in Voronezh. If he refused to cooperate, Makarov says, they threatened to kill him, his mother, or his brother. After what the men called a “productive” conversation, Makarov was released from Center “E,” where his friends were already waiting at the entrance.

The National Bolshevik Party in Voronezh stated that as Makarov does not have any enemies, anything that happens to him or his relatives should be considered retaliation on the part of Center “E” for his refusal to cooperate.

The Center for Extremism Prevention of the Russian Interior Ministry was founded on October 31, 2008 on the order of the Interior Minister. It is accused by Amnesty International of stifling dissent from journalists and activists under charges of extremist activity; a 2009 report cites accusations of torture to extract confessions from criminal suspects. Police in Russia have long been accused of torture, which the Internal Ministry has admitted is a problem.

The rally Makarov had helped to plan was part of the “Strategy 31” opposition protests held on the 31st of every month with that date. Organizers hope to bring attention to the 31st article of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to freedom of assembly. A related event in Moscow that same night ended with the detention of 70 of the approximately 500 activists, including Eduard Limonov, a leader of the Other Russia coalition and the National Bolsheviks.