Amnesty International Report 1995 - Russia

There were numerous allegations of ill-treatment in detention. Conditions in some pre-trial prisons amounted to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. At least 125 people were sentenced to death, and three people were executed. The death penalty was abolished for four offences. There were reports of inadequate legal protection for asylum-seekers. Inaugural sessions for both houses in the new bicameral legislature were held in January. That month the lower house, the State Duma, appointed Sergey Kovalyov, a former prisoner of conscience, to the new post of parliamentary Ombudsman for Human Rights. However, legislation establishing this post had not been adopted by the end of the year and Sergey Kovalyov exercised his functions through his existing position as chairman of the presidential Commission on Human Rights. In April the State Duma created a committee to investigate human rights violations in pre-trial detention. In December Russian troops entered the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic-Ichkeriya, an area in the south of the country which had declared itself independent in 1991. Hundreds were killed in subsequent fighting. The leaders of parliamentary opposition to President Boris Yeltsin who were detained after violent events in Moscow in October 1993 (see Amnesty International Report 1994) were freed under an amnesty declared by the State Duma in February. The amnesty also covered leaders of an attempted coup in 1991. In July the death penalty was abolished for four offences: terrorist acts, terrorist acts against a representative of a foreign state, sabotage and counterfeiting. Although the right of conscientious objectors to a civilian alternative to compulsory military service had been enshrined in the Constitution since April 1992, parliament again failed to introduce the necessary enabling legislation or to amend the criminal code to reflect the constitutional provision. Young men continued to risk imprisonment for refusing their call-up papers on grounds of conscience, and often had to initiate legal action themselves to avoid prosecution for evading conscription. Religious pacifist Pavel Zverev, for example, brought a civil action against the conscription board which had refused his request for alternative service. On 14 April a Moscow court ruled in his favour, in what was believed to be the first successful such action. Other conscientious objectors were prosecuted, although none was known to have been imprisoned. Jehovah's Witness Oleg Khmelnitsky, for example, was acquitted by a Moscow court on 19 May after the judge gave precedence to the Constitution over the criminal code. Reports of ill-treatment in detention continued. In a July report on human rights observance, the chairman of the presidential Human Rights Commission condemned the penitentiary system for allowing regular and gross violations, and said beatings were widespread. Lack of effective supervision, he reported, meant that many violations were not investigated and that the guilty were not brought to justice. In one instance that came to light, prisoner Sergey Osintsev alleged that he and other prisoners in solitary confinement cells at corrective labour colony YaP 17/1 in Stavropol Territory were assaulted on 12 April by special troops brought in to search the premises. He reported that the prisoners were forced to take off their clothes and then were severely beaten and kicked by the troops, who were said to have wound elastic bandages round their hands in order not to leave visible marks. Sergey Osintsev further alleged that the troops threatened to return and kill him if he lodged an official complaint (as he had done following a similar incident in September 1993). Conditions for those detained in many of the country's pre-trial prisons remained appalling. Gross overcrowding (the presidential Human Rights Commission reported that 76 per cent of the country's 177 such institutions were overcrowded) meant thousands of prisoners on remand were held in filthy, malodorous, pest-ridden cells with inadequate light and ventilation. Tens of thousands had no individual beds, having to sleep in two or three shifts, often without bedding. Insanitary conditions facilitated the spread of parasitic and infectious illnesses. Prisoners' health was further undermined by frequently inadequate food and medical supplies and by oppressively hot and humid conditions in summer which, according to the presidential Human Rights Commission, presented a "real threat to life and health from oxygen starvation". Some prisoners had waited years in such conditions for their cases to come to court. Speaking of two such prisons in Moscow, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, who visited in July, said: "The senses of smell, touch, taste and sight are repulsively assailed. The conditions are cruel, inhuman and degrading; they are torturous". Statistics became available on the application of the death penalty in 1993 and the first half of 1994. Two hundred and twenty-five people were sentenced to death in 1993, 123 death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment by President Yeltsin, and three people were executed. From January to June 1994, 125 people were sentenced to death, the President commuted 143 death sentences, and three people were executed. All executions were for premeditated, aggravated murder. It was unlikely that these figures included eight men under sentence of death in the Chechen Republic-Ichkeriya. In August it was reported that five of the men faced execution after exhausting the territory's appeals process. However, armed conflict in the area made information gathering difficult and the men's situation remained uncertain at the end of the year. On 17 December, six men and four women were said to have been shot dead by Russian troops while trying to flee fighting in the Chechen Republic. According to one account, after seven vehicles from a convoy of 10 had passed through a checkpoint near the village of Nesterovskoye, troops opened fire on the last three cars. Survivors alleged that troops fired without warning and continued firing on those seeking to escape. Official Russian sources confirmed that a number of deaths took place but said that the troops had opened fire in self-defence. An investigation was announced. Reports were received that some asylum-seekers were not granted effective protection against forcible return to countries where they risked falling victim to human rights violations. For example, 20 Afghans who were said to have links with the former communist government of Afghanistan, and were therefore afraid of returning, were arrested on 8 August in the Krasnodar Territory and forcibly expelled via Uzbekistan to Afghanistan. Other asylum-seekers reported being subjected by the police to harassment, threats of deportation, extortion and confiscation of identity documents issued to them by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Amnesty International submitted information about its concerns regarding ill-treatment in detention and conditions in pre-trial prisons to the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, who visited Russia in July. Throughout the year Amnesty International urged the authorities to investigate swiftly and impartially all allegations of ill-treatment, with the results made public and any perpetrators brought to justice. The organization also called for immediate improvements to conditions in pre-trial prisons. Amnesty International welcomed the reduction in the scope of the death penalty, and President Yeltsin's wide exercise of his right to pardon, but throughout the year continued to urge the authorities to commute all death sentences and to take further steps towards total abolition. Amnesty International called on the authorities to ensure that no asylum-seekers were returned to countries where they could face human rights violations, and to ensure the effective protection of asylum-seekers by establishing fair and satisfactory asylum procedures which meet international standards. In October the Foreign Ministry replied that the establishment of procedures on determining refugee status had begun, although they were progressing slowly. The Ministry also reported that President Yeltsin had ordered a review of instructions to officials governing the return of asylum-seekers. Amnesty International called on all parties to the conflict in the Chechen Republic-Ichkeriya to protect all non-combatants in accordance with international humanitarian and human rights law. The organization urged the authorities to ensure that the investigation into the deaths reported near the village of Nesterovskoye was comprehensive and impartial, with the results made public and anyone found responsible for human rights violations brought to justice.