Human rights activists collect testimonies of detainees in Donbas for the Hague

The detainees were tortured and were not provided with basic custodial conditions in illegal places of detention in Donbas.

This is evidenced by the results of the study “Survivors of hell: Testimonies of victims to illegal places of detention in Donbas”, which has been prepared by the human rights coalition “Justice for Peace in Donbas” and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.

As noted in the study, as of September 30, 2014, 26 facilities located in or near seven cities were known to be used as illegal places of detention.

The places to held detainees were properly equipped and operated under the control of law enforcement officers. Typically, those were temporary detention facilities in seized cities, and premises of the law enforcement agencies (the Interior Ministry, the Security Service, the courts), which were used for detention of persons.

However, almost all of those interviewed were held in unsuitable places for that – in room in the administrative or even private buildings, basements, garages, sheds, pits, sometimes people were kept in the open air. In such places, members of the armed gangs held those, who, in particular, had committed disciplinary offenses, or fell into the hands of the armed criminals without documents.

Often criminals transferred a detainee to several places. So, one of the respondents was delivered to eight different locations for the period from October 29, 2014 to May 23, 2015. He was held in the cellars, basement, sometimes offices. The other person during his 24 days of imprisonment was held in three locations in Luhansk region – the temporary detention facility in Severodonetsk, in a garage in Stakhanov, and in a cafe premises Perevalsk.

People were kept in inadequate conditions – in the dark, damp premises with limited access to drinking water, often without access to a toilet. In some cases, men and women were housed in the same room. In addition, the detainees were subjected to torture, threats, sleep deprivation, simulate executions, beatings, suffocation, forced labor, forced participation in a “parade of prisoners of war.”

The human rights activists point out that taking into account the fact that Ukraine recognized jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in respect of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Ukraine since February 20, 2014, the international human rights institutions may use the results of the report dealing with a number of documented violations of international humanitarian law. The violations, inter alia, include the use of undue force during the arrest of civilians, failure to provide medical care, broken-down toilets and the lack of places to sleep, the absence or insufficient quantity of food and water, torture and ill-treatment, including by medical workers.