Human rights defenders former a coalition “Against torture” with intention to visit all the prisons of Ukraine

The Memorandum about creation of the coalition “Against torture” was signed by 12 human rights organizations operating in Ukraine.

“The main goal of the coalition is to reduce the level of torture and ill – treatment in the country. In recent times human rights violations became more serious and require more joint efforts to improve the situation,” – said at a press conference in “Interfax-Ukraine” News Agency on Monday, the Director of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG) Yevhen Zakharov.

The Coalition aims to cover all correctional institutions with monitoring visits and strengthen the protection of rights of the convcits.

“The violation of the principle of non-refoulement has become systematic over the years, when the person, who is seeking asylum, is forcibly returned or extradited to their country of origin, where there is a risk of death, tortures and political persecution”, – said Zakharov.

He also drew attention to the large scale of the problem of tortures and abusiveness in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The Memorandum on creation of the “Against torture” coalition was signed by the KHPG, Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, Kharkiv Institute of Social Researches, Ukrainian nongovernmental organization “Magnolia”, The Civic Committee for the Protection of Constitutional Rights and Civil Liberties, The Centre for Legal and Political Research “SIM” (Lviv), organization “Shore of Peace” (Lutsk), The “Sich” Human Rights Protection Group (Dnipro), “Forpost” (Dnipro), NGO “Territory of Success” (Kropyvnytskyi), Odessa Oblast’ Organization of All-Ukrainian NGO “Committee of Voters of Ukraine”, Kherson regional charity and health foundation, Chotkiv NGO “Helsinki Initiative-XXI” (Chotkiv, Ternopil region).