Torture and Abuse
The Constitution of Russia forbids arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment. Chapter 2, Article 21 of the constitution states, "No one may be subjected to torture, violence or any other harsh or humiliating treatment or punishment." However Russian police are regularly observed practicing torture - including beatings, electric shocks, rape, asphyxiation - in interrogating arrested suspects. In 2000, human rights Ombudsman Oleg Mironov estimated that 50% of prisoners with whom he spoke claimed to have been tortured. Amnesty International reported that Russian military forces in Chechnya engage in torture.
In the most extreme cases, hundreds of innocent people from the street were arbitrary arrested, beaten, tortured, and raped by special police forces. Such incidents took place not only in Chechnya, but also in Russian towns of Blagoveshensk, Bezetsk, Nefteyugansk, and others. On 2007 Radio Svoboda ("Radio Freedom", part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) reported that an unofficial movement "Russia the Beaten" was created in Moscow by human rights activists and journalists who "suffered from beatings in numerous Russian cities".
Torture and humiliation are also widespread in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The term dedovshchina refers to systematic abuse of new conscripts by more long-serving soldiers. Many young men are killed or commit suicide every year because of it. It is reported that some young male conscripts are forced to work as prostitutes for "outside clients". Union of the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia works to protect rights of young soldiers.
The current phenomenon of dedovschina is closely linked to the division of Soviet and now Russian junior soldiers into four 'classes,' each reflecting a group called up every six months for a total two-year service period. This system stemmed from the adoption of two-year service in 1967. The reduction in the term of service to one year and the increasing number of contract servicemen in the Armed Forces may change the character of dedovschina somewhat.
Read more about this topic: Torture In Russia
Famous quotes containing the words torture and, torture and/or abuse:
“The people who make wars, the people who reduce their fellows to slavery, the people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes, the really evil people in a word—these are never the publicans and the sinners. No, they’re the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest ideals.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world’s slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“How long, then, Catiline, while you abuse our patience? How long is this madness of yours to make sport of us?”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)