Ukraine’s National Police to remove illegal cages from subway at request of human rights defenders

Deputy Head of the National Police of Ukraine Kostiantyn Bushuyev has promised to immediately remove the illegal cages for detention of people at police stations in the subway.

He wrote this on Facebook page.

“I want to thank to the public, who drew our attention to the problem of ‘cages’ in Kyiv subway stations. The ‘cages’ will be dismantled in Kyiv subway tomorrow, and in all subways in the country in a week or two,” Bushuyev wrote on Sunday.

Margarita Tarasova, the journalist of the Human Rights Information Centre, who deals with the topic of violations in places of detention and who participated in the visits to subway, welcomes such a response of the law enforcement officers, but draws attention to the other problems at the subway police stations.

“I am very pleased with a positive response of the police. This is a great indicator of that human rights are indeed a priority for the law enforcement agencies. I hope that the cages will actually be dismantled in the near future at all stations. However, the issue of absence of video cameras at the police posts and of logbooks remains unresolved. This creates prerequisites for the ill-treatment of people who stay there. I wish police took into account these recommendations,” Tarasova said in a commentary to the Human Rights Information Centre.

As reported, the National Preventive Mechanism monitors held a press conference on Friday, September 2, and called for dismantling the illegal cages for detention of people at police posts in Kyiv subway, which remained there from the Soviet times.