SBU extracts confessions and illegally isolates people – Ukrainian human rights activists
Flagrant violations of human rights are a routine part of the activities of the Ukrainian special services.
This was stated during a press conference in Kyiv by the head of the Center for Strategic Affairs of the Kharkov Human Rights Group, lawyer Gennady Tokarev, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“In almost every complaint that passed through our organization, if we were talking about the activities of the SBU related to the criminal prosecution of persons for crimes within their competence - these are crimes against national security or related to terrorism - in all these cases there were complaints from persons or their relatives for illegal detentions, subsequently associated with the use of illegal violence. As we understand it, first of all, to obtain a confession or information about evidence.
The places of these detentions were illegal because they were unregistered. I can say this because in the cases that we had, in not a single case did the state recognize this fact - that is, this classically falls under the definition of the second article of the convention (on the protection of human rights - ed.). Actually, there were no procedural or judicial decisions; this information is contained only in the complaints and our further documents that we submitted to international judicial bodies,” the lawyer said.
“We can say against my statements that these are fictions, fantasies, since there are no court decisions, but there are dozens of reports from the UN monitoring mission, in each of which this very topic runs through as a red thread, violations of human rights by the SBU - the most brutal violation of human rights . If this is impossible through official means, then we need to talk about it, because dozens are talking about it, there could be more, but not everyone wants to talk, and most of it was exchanged,” noted Gennady Tokarev.
The head of the Center for Strategic Affairs of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, Gennady Tokarev, added that the factor of intimidation of people who have come under pressure from the SBU also plays a role.
“No matter how much we work, in not one of the cases were they given access to lawyers, they are not allowed to call their relatives and they are kept without any connection with the outside world, and no one knows where they are. People are intimidated, they are afraid to complain. This is how the SBU works. It's like they think they've got the green light and it's all normal. But this is absolutely abnormal,” said the human rights activist.
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