There was continuing impunity for torture and other ill-treatment. Reforms of the
justice system failed to increase independence of the judiciary, and the rule of law
was undermined by the use of the criminal justice system for political ends. Asylum-seekers
risked being forcibly returned and were unable to access a fair asylum procedure.
Human rights defenders were at risk of prosecution and physical attack for their work.
There were continuing reports of torture and other ill-treatment in police custody.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in nine cases against Ukraine, finding that
Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits torture, had
been violated.
Firdovsi Safarov, a Ukrainian citizen of Azeri ethnic origin, told Amnesty International
that, on 26 March, he had been beaten by six police officers from Mohiliov Podilsky
police station. He had been stopped by police officers while taking an old car to
a scrap yard. He was punched in the head and racially abused. At the station, the
Director and other police officers beat him intermittently until 1am, when he was
released. Firdovsi Safarov said that he had been asked to pay US$3,000 to be released.
He was later charged with resisting police officers, but was acquitted on 25 June.
Firdovsi Safarov lodged a complaint about the ill-treatment and, after two refusals,
the Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation in July. Although the investigation
was ongoing, the Director of the police station remained in post at the end of the
year. In October, Firdovsi Safarov was rehospitalized due to the injuries he had received,
but his treatment was stopped early, reportedly because police officers pressurized
the doctors treating him.
A culture of impunity for the police continued. Structural shortcomings, corruption,
non-existent or flawed investigations into criminal acts committed by the police (even
in the face of medical or other credible evidence), harassment and intimidation of
complainants, and the subsequent low level of prosecutions, all fuelled this lack
of accountability. A high number of complaints about the police were rejected at
the first instance. In July, the Prosecutor General’s Office stated that out of the
6,817 complaints made against police officers in 2010, only 167 had resulted in criminal
investigations, of which 21 were subsequently closed for lack of evidence.
On 17 August, three Kyiv Court of Appeal judges decided that no further investigation
was required into the death in police custody of 19-year-old student Ihor Indilo in
2010. In doing so, the court effectively accepted the police explanation that his
fatal head injury had been caused by falling 50cm from a bench in the cell in which
he was detained. In October, the Prosecutor General announced that he had ordered
a further investigation into the death.
On 24 October, the Kyiv Prosecutor announced that an investigation had been opened
into Alexander Rafalsky’s continuing and persistent claims that he had been tortured
in June 2001 to force him to confess to murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment
in 2004. Prosecutors had consistently refused to open an investigation into his allegations.
The process of reform of the justice system continued. In July a new draft Criminal
Procedural Code was presented to parliament, but was not passed by the end of the
year.
The independence of judges was threatened by pressure from the Prosecutor General’s
Office, which retained the power to prosecute judges. On 7 June, the Deputy Prosecutor
General requested the dismissal of three judges from the Kyiv Court of Appeal because
they refused a prosecutor’s request to detain a suspect, on the basis that there were
no grounds to hold him.
In October, amendments to the Law on the Judiciary and the Status of Judges were passed.
The amendments responded to criticism of the Law passed in 2010, which had, among
other reforms, seriously reduced the role of the Supreme Court.
The amendments only partially reinstated the Supreme Court’s role.
In October, the Council of Europe criticized the role of parliament in the appointment
and dismissal of judges. Appointing judges initially for five years before confirming
their appointment for life threatened their independence. It recommended that such
judges should not be appointed to deal with “major cases with strong political implications”.
On 11 October, Yuliya Tymoshenko, who had been Prime Minister from January to September
2005 and again from December 2007 to March 2010, was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment
and barred from holding public office for three years by a Kyiv court for signing
a multi-million dollar energy contract with Russia in January 2009. The charges against
her were not recognized criminal offences and were politically motivated. The judge
in her case was on a temporary contract.
On 8 July, Ukraine adopted a new law “on refugees and persons in need of complementary
protection”. It improved the status of refugees, simplified documentation for asylum-seekers,
and introduced the concept of complementary protection for those who did not fall
strictly within the definition of the Refugee Convention. However, it fell short of
international standards by not offering complementary protection for reasons of international
or internal armed conflict. UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, criticized the new law for
failing to provide it with access to people of concern, or with an advisory role in
refugee status determination.
A new State Migration Service of Ukraine, co-ordinated by the Ministry of Internal
Affairs, had been established in December 2010. Regional migration offices stopped
working in October: the new system was operational at the end of the year. Asylum-seekers
risked return to countries where they could face serious human rights violations.
In March, a group of 10 Afghan citizens including one child were returned to Afghanistan.
The asylum applications by some of the group had been refused. They were not given
the opportunity to appeal against this refusal, or their deportation. The group claimed
they had not been provided with interpreters while applying for asylum or during the
deportation process and that they were required to sign documents in a language they
did not understand. On 17 March, the State Border Guard Service told regional media
that force had been used against the men because they had tried to resist their deportation.
Human rights defenders, who exposed corruption and human rights violations by local
officials and police, faced physical attacks and prosecution in an attempt to silence
them.
On 12 January, Dmytro Groysman, Chair of the Vinnytsya Human Rights Group, was charged
with insulting the national flag of Ukraine and with distributing pornography for
posting a sexually explicit satirical video and images on his blog. At the end of
the year, the trial was still ongoing and Dmytro Groysman was on bail. The use of
such images in this context fell within the limits of permissible public expression
under international law. Dmytro Groysman was the only person prosecuted for posting
the video, despite it having already been widely circulated within the public domain
on various internet sites, which suggested that he may have been targeted because
of his human rights work.
On 28 August, Andrei Fedosov, the head of Yuzer, an organization defending the rights
of psychiatric patients, was allegedly subjected to a brutal attack because of his
work to expose corruption and human rights violations in psychiatric hospitals. He
had been invited to the village of Mirny in the Crimea by an unidentified man on the
pretext that a psychiatric patient needed his assistance. He was taken to a flat in
the village where he was tortured. When he was released, he immediately phoned the
police. He saw his attacker walking down the village street and pointed him out. The
police drove both Andrei Fedosov and the attacker to the police station in the village.
The attacker and the police appeared to be on familiar terms. Andrei Fedosov reported
the crime, gave his passport details and then left. Outside the station, he paused
to phone a friend, but was then detained again by the police, who claimed that he
was displaying “inadequate behaviour”. The police took him to a psychiatric hospital
for a test, and struck him on the head when he questioned the why he was being taken
there. Once he arrived the doctors there released him. The authorities failed to investigate
the attack and Andrei Fedosov had great difficulty in documenting his injuries. Despite
attempts to document his injuries, doctors in the nearby city of Yevpatoriya and in
Kyiv did not take his injuries seriously.
