"Welcome to Hell"
Arbitrary Detention, Torture, and Extortion in Chechnya
Human Rights Watch
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Copyright © October 2000 by Human Rights Watch.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the Unted States of America.
ISBN: 1-56432-253-X
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00-109421
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A NOTE ON THE USE OF NAMES
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
SUMMARY
Mass Arrests and Arbitrary Detention
Torture and Other Abuse at Chernokozovo
Abuses and Torture at Other Places of Detention
The Business of Release: Extortion and "Amnesties"
Incommunicado Detention and "Disappearances"
INTRODUCTION
LEGAL STANDARDS
International Standards
Domestic Standards
The Duty to Investigate
THE PROCESS OF DETENTION
Arrests at Checkpoints and Border Crossings
Arrests in the context of "mop-up" operations
Arrests during targeted sweeps of communities
THE CHERNOKOZOVO DETENTION CENTER
Introduction
Beatings and other torture at Chernokozovo
The Human Corridor
Torture in the Context of Interrogations
Night Beatings: "They were out of control"
Humiliating "games"
Physical Exhaustion
Rape
The "Cleanup"
The Russian Commission Visit
International Outrage and Russian Denial
ABUSES AND TORTURE IN OTHER PLACES OF DETENTION
Stavropol territory
Military bases
Mozdok
Khankala
Other Military Encampments
Other Ad-hoc Detention Centers
Tolstoy Yurt
The Internat in Urus-Martan
Local Police Stations or Command Posts, and Abuse in Transit
THE BUSINESS OF RELEASE: EXTORTION, "AMNESTIES,"AND THE THREAT OF RE-ARREST
Extortion
Rearrest and the Threat of Rearrest
OTHER VIOLATIONS OF THE RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS DEPRIVED OF THEIR LIBERTY
Prolonged Incommunicado Detention and "Disappearances"
Denial of access to legal counsel
RECOMMENDATIONS
To the Government of the Russian Federation
To the Special Representative for Human Rights in Chechnya Vladimir Kalamanov
To the International Community
United Nations
To the Council of Europe
To the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
To the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development and Bilateral Donors
To the European Union and the United States
APPENDIX 1: KNOWN PLACES OF DETENTION IN CHECHNYA
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Human Rights Watch had a continuous research presence in Ingushetia
from December 1999 to May 2000. Research for this report was conducted
by Peter Bouckaert and Malcolm
Hawkes, researchers; Alexander Petrov, deputy director of the Moscow
office; and Johanna Bjorken and Max Marcus, consultants. The report was
written by Johanna Bjorken and Peter
Bouckaert. It was edited by Rachel Denber, deputy director of the Europe
and Central Asia Division; Martina Vandenberg, researcher in the Women's
Rights Division; Michael
McClintock, deputy program director; and Dinah PoKempner, deputy general
counsel. Special thanks also to Diederik Lohman, director of Human Rights
Watch's Moscow office.
Invaluable assistance was provided by Liuda Belova and Alexander Ovcharuk
in the Moscow office; Alexander Frangos, coordinator for the Europe and
Central Asia division; Rachel
Bien and Maria Pulzetti, associates for the Europe and Central Asia
division; and Patrick Minges, publications director. Human Rights Watch
also wishes to thank its local staff in
Ingushetia who worked tirelessly to help gather the information in
this report.
We are deeply grateful to the Memorial Human Rights Center for their contribution to this report and their collegiality, in Moscow and in Ingushetia.
Most of all, we wish to express our gratitude to the many former detainees
who agreed to share their stories with us, despite their fears of possible
consequences. Many braved genuine
danger to travel to Ingushetia to be interviewed by Human Rights Watch
researchers. We hope that this report will contribute to ending the abuses
in detention that they faced, and
bringing those responsible for torture and other abuses to justice.
Human Rights Watch gratefully acknowledges the C.S. Mott Foundation,
the Carnegie Corporation, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, the Moriah Fund,
and the John Merck Fund for
their generous support.
A NOTE ON THE USE OF NAMES
Most of the persons interviewed for this report were Chechen detainees
who had experienced severe beatings, torture, and other abuses in custody.
They were detained and released in
the first six months of 2000, but many continued to live in great fear
of rearrest and further abuse in detention. Russian authorities in Chechnya
use a computerized database to identify
rebel suspects which could be used to track down witnesses identified
by name. For these reasons, Human Rights Watch has changed the names of
most of the witnesses who provided
information for this report. Changed names are enclosed within quotation
marks, clearly identified as such in footnotes (with the notation "not
his/her real name" when first used) and are
used consistently throughout the report.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Article 208: The part of the Russian Criminal Code that deals with the organization of or participation in illegal armed groups.
CPT: The Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
GAZ 53: A prisoner transport vehicle, with two compartments in the trailer that serve as holding cells. Also may be colloquially called avtozak or voronok.
IVS (Izoliator vremenogo zaderzhania):Temporary holding cell at a police station. Under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry.
Komendatura: Local police command post.
MChS(Ministerstvo chrezvychainykh situatsiy): The Russian Emergencies Situation Ministry, also sometimes called EMERCOM in English.
MVD (Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del): Interior Ministry.
OMON(Otriad militsii osobogo naznachenia):Special forces (riot police)
under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry, not the Defense Ministry.
The Russian government Unified
Forces in Chechnya are composed of Defense Ministry and Interior Ministry
forces.
Procuracy (Prokuratura): State agency responsible for both criminal investigation and prosecution, and human rights protection.
Propiska: Residency permit for one's official place of residence. The
word "propiska" has been excluded from official use since 1995 when the
government introduced registratsiya
(registration). Registration may be permanent or temporary. In everyday
use people still often say "propiska" instead of "registratsiya" without
distinguishing between permanent and
temporary.
SOBR (Spetsialnye otriady bystrogo reagirovania): Special rapid reaction forces.
SIZO (Sledstvennyi izoliator): Pretrial detention center. Under the
jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice.
Welcome to hell. You're lost now. You will die a slow and painful death.
We will teach you to respect Russian officers.
Reported comments of Russian guards to detainee at Chernokozovo.
They used the iron part of their sticks to beat me on the bottoms of
my feet. They put a cloth in my mouth so I couldn't scream, and they handcuffed
me. They made me lay down on my
stomach with my head under the table. They took off my boots and socks,
and beat my soles, especially on the heels. Then they made me stand against
the wall with my hands up, lifted
my shirt and beat me on the kidneys with the sticks.
Former detainee describing torture at Chernokozovo.
I heard the soldiers say while they were kicking me on the floor, 'Let's
fuck him.' Then they said 'we won't dirty ourselves.' ... I was taken from
the cell, and by the time I got to the
questioning room, I was already only half-conscious. I was taken from
this room to another where they said they would fuck me. It was February
7, late at night. I was lying on the
floor, two guards held my legs while another kicked me in the testicles.
I lost consciousness and would come around, I lost consciousness four times.
They hit me around the head,
there was blood. They would beat me unconscious and wait until I came
round: 'He's woken up,' and they would come in and beat me [again].
Former Chernokozovo inmate.
SUMMARY
Chechen detainees who arrived at the Russian Chernokozovo "filtration"
camp in January 2000 received an ominous welcome. "Welcome to hell," the
prison guards would say, and then
force them to walk through a human corridor of baton-wielding guards.
This was only the beginning of a ghastly cycle of abuse for most detainees
in early 2000, who suffered systematic
beatings, rape, and other forms of torture. Most were released only
after their families managed to pay large sums to Russian officials bent
on extortion.
Those forced to run the gauntlet were among the thousands of Chechens
detained by Russian forces on suspicion of collaboration with rebel fighters.
Since September 1999, Russia has
waged a military campaign to reestablish control over Chechnya that
has cost thousands of civilian lives, displaced hundreds of thousands of
people, and caused massive destruction to
civilian infrastructure. Civilians bore the brunt of Russian forces'
indiscriminate and disproportionate bombar>
Übertragung unterbrochen
violations of the rules of internal armed conflict. Although the military
offensive tapered off by April 2000, tens of thousands of displaced Chechens
fear returning home lest they or their
husbands, sons, fathers, or brothers be arrested or killed by Russian
forces. Thousands more in Chechnya do not dare leave their communities,
even to seek medical treatment. There is a
lot to fear: by the end of May 2000, the Ministry of Interior claimed
that more than ten thousand people had been arrested in Chechnya since
the beginning of 2000, of whom 478 were on
the "wanted list," and more than a thousand of whom were "[Chechen]
rebels and their accomplices." (1)Arrests continued throughout Chechnya
as this report went to press. Most of
the detained we1re taken to detention centers set up throughout Chechnya
and elsewhere in the North Caucasus, where they were subjected to severe
abuses.
This report documents arbitrary arrests and the abuses that occur in
detention in Chechnya, focusing on Chernokozovo and six other detention
facilities identified in the region: in
Tolstoy-Yurt, Khankala, and Urus-Martan, all in Chechnya; in Pyatigorsk
and Stavropol, in Stavropol province, and in Mozdok, North Ossetia. It
is based on the work of Human Rights
Watch researchers who identified and interviewed dozens of former detainees
over a four-month period from February to May 2000, carefully cross-checking
and corroborating individual
accounts with the information gathered from other interviews.
The torture and other abuse documented in this report are serious violations
of Russia's obligations under the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and of Protocol
II to the convention which
elaborates the rules for internal armed conflict, and under the instruments
of international human rights law to which Russia is also party.
Arbitrary arrest and torture in detention centers are not a new phenomenon
in Chechnya. During the 1994-1996 Chechen war, Russian forces also rounded
up thousands of Chechen
civilians and took them for interrogation to detention centers in Mozdok,
Grozny, Pyatigorsk, and Stavropol. Detainees were abused and tortured in
these camps during the first war, and
frequently were exchanged for captured Russian soldiers or cash. Many
detainees never came home, "disappearing" forever following their detention
by Russian forces.
Mass Arrests and Arbitrary Detention
As soon as armed conflict resumed in Chechnya in September 1999, Russian
authorities began arresting men and women at checkpoints, during sweeps
that followed military hostilities,
and in targeted sweeps of communities. Although Russia has not declared
a state of emergency in Chechnya, due process rights are routinely ignored
in the arrest process. Detained
persons are frequently held incommunicado, and many remain in unacknowledged
detention, "disappeared" months after their arrest. The grounds for detention
are often wholly
arbitrary: men and women are detained simply because they are found
in locations that are not their official, permanent address, because their
documents are incomplete, because they
share a surname with a Chechen commander, because they are perceived
to have relatives who are fighters, or because they "look" like fighters.
Chechens are so commonly detained at checkpoints within Chechnya and
along Chechnya's borders with other parts of Russia that many have gone
to great lengths to avoid travel
altogether, even when they need to flee active fighting. Checkpoint
officials are often abusive towards fleeing civilians, particularly towards
young males. Men were regularly beaten
during the detention process, and frequently subjected to taunts and
threats. On occasion, women have been raped at checkpoints after being
detained: Human Rights documented the
rape of two young women at the main Kavkaz border crossing in late
January 2000.
Russian forces commonly rounded up and detained groups of Chechen men
in "mop-ups," or operations to flush out or detain rebels and their collaborators,
following the takeover of
Chechen communities. Russian forces also carry out arrest sweeps and
house-to-house searches after guerrilla ambushes or other attacks. In some
cases, the male population of a village
was rounded up, taken to an empty field, and subjected to beatings
while Russian officials looked for suspected rebels. Those rounded up in
mop-up or sweep operations are treated
especially harshly: Russian forces beat them mercilessly, sometimes
to death, and have summarily executed others. In one case, Akhmed Doshaev
was summarily executed by Russian
soldiers after being arrested in Shaami-Yurt on February 5, 2000.
Torture and Other Abuse at Chernokozovo
During January and early February 2000, when the war was in its most
intense phase, the remand prison at Chernokozovo, located some sixty kilometers
north-west of Grozny, was the
principal destination for detainees in Chechnya. Detainees arriving
at Chernokozovo were met by two lines of baton-wielding guards forming
a human gauntlet, and received a punishing
beating before entering the facility. At least one detainee, Aindi
Kovtorashvilli, died at the facility on January 11, 2000, when an earlier
head wound was aggravated during the intake
beating.
Detainees at Chernokozovo were beaten both during interrogation and
during nighttime sessions when guards utterly ran amok. During interrogation,
detainees were forced to crawl on
the ground and were beaten so severely that some sustained broken ribs
and injuries to their kidneys, liver, testicles, and feet. (2) Some were
also tortured with electric shocks.
At night, guards were given free rein for wanton abuse and humiliation.
Often drunk and playing loud music, guards would subject detainees to beatings
and humiliating games. Some of
the most severe beatings took place at night: detainees report being
beaten unconscious, only to be revived and beaten again. Detainees were
forced to crawl across rooms with guards
on their backs, and were beaten if they performed too slowly. In their
cells, detainees were ordered to stand with their hands raised for entire
days, and guards used teargas if their orders
were disobeyed. Convincing evidence exists that men and women were
raped and sexually assaulted with police batons at Chernokozovo.
In mid-February, amid mounting international attention to human rights
abuses in Chechnya and calls for visits by international delegations, Russian
authorities ordered a clean-up of the
Chernokozovo facility. A visit in early February 2000 by Russian military
officials found serious evidence of abuse, even though many abused inmates
were removed from the facility
prior to the visit and others were warned not to complain. By the time
international monitors and journalists visited the facility in late February
2000, conditions had improved and most of
the evidence of abuse had been removed. Russian officials, including
presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky and special presidential representative
for human rights Vladimir
Kalamanov, issued blanket denials about abuses at Chernokozovo. To
date, there has been no formal investigation into the abuse at Chernokozovo.
Abuses and Torture at Other Places of Detention
Improvements in conditions at Chernokozovo by mid-February did not bring
relief for the increasing number of detainees who were taken to other detention
places. Detainees continued
to suffer abuses at checkpoints, police stations, military bases, and
prisons within and beyond Chechnya.
At remand prisons in Stavropol and Pyatigorsk, both located in the Stavropol
territory, detainees were also met with a gauntlet of soldiers who beat
them with batons, and suffered
continuing severe beatings while at the detention facilities. At Mozdok
military base, detainees were sodomized with batons, forced to walk between
ranks of guards while being beaten
and kicked, and beaten in their testicles. A doctor in Ingushetia reported
receiving a patient who had been detained at Mozdok who had severely swollen
genitals and appeared to have
been raped, as he suffered from internal injuries to the colon.
At the large Khankala military base outside Grozny detainees were often
kept in overcrowded prisoner transport vehicles, even during the bitter
cold of winter. A nineteen-year-old
woman who was believed to be mentally retarded was raped at Khankala
for three days by numerous soldiers at the end of January 2000. Men were
severely beaten there, including
during interrogations, and at least one was tortured with a soldering
iron. In April, two badly disfigured corpses were recovered from Khankala,
and it is likely that the two men were
tortured and executed at the facility.
Abuses also took place at military encampments around Chechnya. Zhebir
Turpalkhanov was detained in April 2000 at an encampment near Tsotsin-Yurt
and severely beaten for five
days during his detention; he died just hours after his release.
Detainees were also kept at a disused oil refinery near Tolstoy-Yurt,
where abuses included threats of summary execution and beatings--some so
severe that they led to broken ribs. At a
former boarding school in Urus-Martan, one of three detention facilities
in the town, detainees were forced to walk through a gauntlet of baton-wielding
guards and were subjected to
frequent beatings; one inmate was reportedly raped as recently as April
2000.
Upon arrest, detainees were often first taken to police stations before
being transported to detention centers. Many detainees from Grozny went
first to the Znamenskoye police station,
where they were beaten and kicked upon arrival and in their cells.
When detainees were transported from Znamenskoye, they were sometimes stacked
on top of each other like logs,
causing detainees at the bottom of the pile to lose consciousness.
Human Rights Watch has also documented similar physical abuse and beatings
at other police posts.
The Business of Release: Extortion and "Amnesties"
The majority of former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported
that they were only released after their families had paid substantial
bribes to their Russian captors and
predatory intermediaries, ranging from 2,000 rubles to U.S. $5,000.
In fact, bribes were demanded for release so often that in many cases,
detention itself appears to have been motivated
by the promise of financial gain, rather than by the need to identify
rebel elements. One man detained by OMON troops near Komsomolskoye in late
January 2000 was never turned over
to investigative authorities; instead, his captors immediately opened
negotiations with the family for his release.
The guilt or innocence of the detainee seem to have little impact on
the extortion process, except on the amount of money involved: innocence
alone is not enough to secure release, and
even confirmed Chechen fighters can be bought out for the appropriate
amount. In one documented case, the head of a village administration secured
the release of a captured fighter for
U.S. $5,000. In most cases, relatives are approached by middlemen preying
on their desperation to extort large sums for the release of the detained
relative.
Russian officials often refuse to return important identity documents
to detainees upon release, or release detainees with documents identifying
them as "amnestied fighters," even when
involvement in armed activity was never established. This curtails
the freedom of movement of the released detainee, as they are unable to
travel through checkpoints for fear of rearrest,
harassment, or other abuse. Detainees released without documents become
virtual prisoners in their home districts.
Incommunicado Detention and "Disappearances"
Russian authorities withhold information about whom they have in custody,
and do not allow detainees to communicate with their families, even when
detained for months. As a result,
relatives travel to detention facilities, desperately trying to establish
the whereabouts of their loved ones. Many maintain a steady vigil outside
the detention centers where they believe
their relatives are kept, and constantly exchange information among
themselves about other known detention facilities and lists of names of
known detainees, smuggled out by those who
are released.
INTRODUCTION
The current military campaign in Chechnya started in September 1999.
It was sparked that month by a Chechen armed incursion into the neighboring
republic of Dagestan and several
bombings in Russia, which the Russian government quickly blamed on
Chechen forces. Russia's military campaign in Chechnya has been characterized
by widespread human rights
abuses and violations of the laws of war, including mass killings of
civilians, indiscriminate bombing and shelling, and widespread pillage.
(3)
After advancing quickly through northern Chechnya, taking many towns
without a fight--including Chechnya's second-largest city, Gudermes--Russian
forces began focusing their
offensive on the Chechen capital, Grozny. In early January, Chechen
fighters in Grozny caught Russian forces by surprise when they broke out
of the capital and temporarily took control
of several towns surrounding it, including Alkhan-Kala, Gudermes, Argun
and Shali. (4) Gen. Viktor Kazantsev, who at the time was Russia's commander
of the United Group of Forces in
Chechnya, quickly blamed the setbacks on the "tenderheartedness" of
Russian troops and their "groundless trust" in Chechen civilians. (5) General
Kazantsev ordered Chechnya's
internal borders closed to all men between the ages of ten and sixty,
and stated that all men between those ages would be taken to a "filtration
camp," Chernokozovo, to be investigated
for rebel affiliation. (6) Almost immediately, Russian forces in Chechnya
began detaining men in this age range and sending them to a prison facility
in Chernokozovo, in northern
Chechnya.
In February 2000, Chechen rebel fighters abandoned Grozny and set out
for the mountains of southern Chechnya to continue their fighting. Russian
forces responded with further
widespread arrests of Chechen males, most of them civilians without
rebel affiliation. In several cases, more than one hundred male civilians
were arrested in a single incident. About the
same time, the first detainees from the Chernokozovo detention facilities
began to be released, and spoke out about appalling abuses there. The international
community reacted with
outrage to the allegations and pressured Russia to end the abuses at
Chernokozovo and to open the facility to outside scrutiny.
In response to intense criticism, the Russian government made some improvements
to the Chernokozovo facility, and then allowed limited access to it for
international agencies. Prior to
visits by foreign journalists and Council of Europe delegations, detainees
were transferred temporarily to conceal the overcrowded conditions as well
as the abuse they had suffered. The
guards warned inmates not to speak candidly with visitors, and punished
those who did. As spring arrived, Chechen fighters attempted to disrupt
Russian forces efforts to consolidate
control over the lowlands by launching periodic ambushes and other
attacks on Russian targets. Russian forces--in most cases riot police--frequently
responded with round-ups of
Chechens, ostensibly those suspected of affiliation with the fighters.
As arrests continued, the Russian authorities decentralized their operation,
holding suspects at facilities closer to
the place of arrest, only later to transfer some to the spruced-up
Chernokozovo and different, lesser-known detention facilities.
This report deals exclusively with abuses committed by Russian forces
against those deprived of their liberty. Russian authorities frequently
deflect criticism of the human rights
violations committed in Chechnya by referring to the appalling abuses
committed by the Chechen side, which in this and previous conflicts have
included summary execution, including
by beheading, kidnaping, rape, torture and ill-treatment, and general
violation of civilian immunities. Other Human Rights Watch reports and
press releases have documented abuses by
Chechen forces in the current conflict. However, violations committed
by one side can never be used to justify violations committed by the other.
LEGAL STANDARDS
International Standards
Torture, physical abuse, arbitrary arrest, "disappearances," summary
executions, rape, and the failure to accord procedural rights to persons
in detention and at trial violate international
human rights norms binding upon Russia, in particular those codified
in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and
the Convention against Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention Against
Torture). Russia is also a party to the European Convention on Human Rights
(ECHR), and subject to the
jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, the body which
enforces the ECHR. (7)
The provisions of international humanitarian law, also known as the
laws of war, which came into play with the renewed outbreak of armed conflict
in Chechnya, bar much of the same
conduct, an essential difference being the combatant's "privilege"
to take part in hostilities, including acting to kill or harm opposing
combatants. Russia is party to the four Geneva
Conventions of 1949 and their two Protocols. (8) The fighting in Chechnya
unquestionably has been intense enough to qualify as "armed conflict,"
making applicable the laws of war.
The armed conflict is of a "non-international" character and thus governed
by Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocol
II. (9)
The most grievous affront to basic international human rights and humanitarian
norms documented in this report is the violation of the right to life.
Article 6(1) of the ICCPR provides "No
one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life," and article 2 of the
ECHR similarly bars intentional killing except in very narrow circumstances.
With respect to non-combatants, Common
Article 3 prohibits "at any time and in any place whatsoever ... violence
to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds," and "the passing
of sentences and carrying out of executions
without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court."
Protocol II articulates the same prohibitions in similar language at articles
2 and 6. These standards would all
apply without possibility of derogation to forbid the extrajudicial
execution of detainees.
Few elements of international human rights law are as unequivocal as
the ban on torture. The prohibition is embodied in the United Nations Universal
Declaration on Human Rights,
which states in Article 5: "No one shall be subjected to torture or
to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." That right is
reaffirmed verbatim in article 7 of the ICCPR and
article 3 of the ECHR. The Convention against Torture, article 1(1),
defines torture as:
any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental,
is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from
him or a third person information or a
confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed,
or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based
on discrimination of any kind, when
such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or
with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting
in an official capacity. It does not include pain
or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful
sanctions.
Article 15 of the Convention against Torture requires states parties
to ensure that statements obtained through torture not be used as evidence
in any proceedings, except against a
person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made.
Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and Protocol II likewise prohibit
violence to the physical and mental
well-being of the person, including mutilation, cruel treatment and
torture as well as "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating
and degrading treatment." (10)
Rape and other forms of sexual violence fall within the prohibition
of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" prohibited under the human rights
treaties, and indeed, may often rise to the
level of torture. (11) These acts are also explicitly and implicitly
condemned by international humanitarian law. (12)
Even where the act of sexual violence was not technically rape, or did
not cause severe physical pain or suffering, it still may rise to the level
of torture or other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment on account of the psychological suffering inflicted.
In interviews, some women detainees spoke of being forced to strip naked
during interrogations. The Akayesu
Judgment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) established
a broad definition of sexual violence: "Sexual violence is not limited
to physical invasion of the human
body and may include acts which do not involve penetration or even
physical contact," including forced nudity. (13)
Arbitrary arrest or detention is prohibited by Article 9 of the ICCPR.
To comply with Article 9, the state must specify in its legislation the
grounds on which individuals may be deprived
of their liberty and the procedures to be used in enforcing arrests
and detentions. Only acts conducted in accordance with such rules are considered
lawful, thus restricting the discretion
of individual arresting officers. Moreover, the prohibition on arbitrariness
means that the deprivation of liberty, even if provided for by law, must
still be proportional to the reasons for
arrest, as well as predictable. Article 9 also specifically requires
that detainees be immediately informed of the reasons for their arrest
and promptly be told of any charges against them,
and that they be brought promptly before a judge empowered to rule
upon the lawfulness of the detention. Article 5 of the ECHR contains similar
guarantees.
The manner in which Russian authorities have rounded up and detained
civilians in Chechnya must be considered arbitrary. Grounds cited for detention
often were alleged irregularities
with identification documents. Under Russian law, police officers are
allowed to detain an individual for up to three hours to establish his
or her identity, but only if the officer has
sufficient grounds to suspect that the individual has committed an
administrative or criminal offense. (14) But as documented in this report,
civilians were detained for weeks or even
months for alleged passport irregularities, and detaining authorities
rarely stated other grounds to justify the arrest. When civilians were
detained for being in locations that were not their
legal permanent address, this not only constituted arbitrary arrest,
but also violated their rights to freedom of movement. Often, however,
no grounds at all for arrests were given.
Domestic Standards
Russia has not declared a state of emergency in Chechnya, and thus Russia's
domestic legal obligations, including the constitutional rights of citizens,
remain in full force in the war-torn
republic. Russia remains obligated to fully adhere to these rights
without derogation.
Torture and physical abuse are punishable crimes under the Russian legal
code, although the legal definition of torture in Russian law does not
cover the full scope of the definition
contained in the Convention against Torture. Article 21(2) of the Russian
constitution states in relevant part that "[no] one may be subjected to
torture, violence or other treatment or
punishment that is cruel or degrading to the human dignity." (15) Article
111 of Russia's criminal code sets penalties of two to fifteen years of
imprisonment for the infliction of serious
bodily injury, but does not specifically address persons acting in
an official capacity. (16) Article 117 of the criminal code, which also
does not address persons acting in an official
capacity, addresses ill-treatment:
Infliction of physical or psychological suffering by administering systematic
beatings or other violent means, if this did not have the consequences
indicated in article 111 [severe
damage to health] and 112 [damage to health of average seriousness]
of this law is punishable by deprivation of freedom for up to three years.
The Russian criminal procedure code bans the coercion of "a defendant
or other participant in a case to give testimony by means of violence,
threats or other unlawful means," (17) and
since March 1999 the law on police also forbids the use of torture
and ill-treatment. (18) Torture committed by an official is considered
an aggravated circumstance of the crime of
coercion to give testimony, defined in article 302 of the criminal
code:
1. Coercion of a suspect, defendant, victim [of crime] or witness into
giving testimony or coercion of an expert into giving a conclusion by means
of threats, blackmail or other unlawful
means by an investigator or person carrying out the inquiry is punishable
by deprivation of freedom for a period of up to three years.
2. The same action, together with the application of violence, degrading treatment or torture is punishable by deprivation of freedom for a period of two to eight years.
Summary or arbitrary executions are acts of murder, and are punishable as such under the Russian criminal code. Similarly, rape is a punishable offense under the Russian criminal code.
The Duty to Investigate
Under international law, Russia has a duty to investigate allegations
of torture, rape, summary execution and other serious violations of human
rights and international humanitarian law
standards. The perpetrators of such abuses should be punished, and
victims should be provided with compensation.
Article 12 of the Convention against Torture obliges states parties
to initiate a prompt and impartial investigation of torture complaints
whenever circumstances give "reasonable ground
to believe that an act of torture has been committed." Article 13 of
the ECHR requires states to establish "an effective remedy before a national
authority" for anyone whose rights and
freedoms
as set out in the convention have been violated. In addition, the European
Court of Human Rights has ruled that article 1 of the ECHR, in conjunction
with article 3, requires an effective
investigation of torture complaints whenever the applicant has an "arguable
claim." (19) For example, in the case of Assenov and others v. Bulgaria
it stated:
The Court considers that, in these circumstances, where an individual
raises an arguable claim that he has been seriously ill-treated by the
police or other agents of the State unlawfully
and in breach of Article 3, that provision, read in conjunction with
the State's general duty under Article 1 of the Convention to "secure to
everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and
freedoms in [the] Convention," requires by implication that there should
be an effective official investigation [of alleged violations of the rights
set forth in the Convention.] This
obligation...should be capable of leading to the identification and
punishment of those responsible. (20)
The court elaborated upon the need for a sufficiently thorough and effective
investigation in various decisions, as in the case of Assenov and Others
v. Bulgaria, in which the court held
that Bulgaria had denied the applicant an effective remedy. In this
case, prosecutors had failed to immediately question a series of witnesses
to a police beating of a Roma adolescent in
public. In addition, prosecutors at various levels had concluded, without
a proper investigation, that "even if the blows were administered on the
body of the juvenile, they occurred as a
result of disobedience of police orders" and that the boy's father
had caused the injuries. (21)
In another decision, Aksoy v. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights
ruled that if an applicant was in good health when detained and injured
at the time of release, the burden of
proof lies with the government:
[W]here an individual is taken into police custody in good health but
is found to be injured at the time of release, it is incumbent on the State
to provide a plausible explanation as to the
causing of injury, failing which a clear issue rises under Article
3. (22)
Article 13 of the Convention against Torture also obliges states to ensure individuals the right to complain and to be protected against repercussions for filing a complaint. (23)
The U.N. Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of
Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions encourage states to investigate
all suspected cases of extra-legal,
arbitrary, and summary executions. These authoritative standards explicitly
include deaths in custody if there are "complaints by relatives or other
reliable reports" which suggest that an
unnatural death occurred. The investigation, which must be thorough,
prompt, and impartial, should" determine the cause, manner and time of
death, the person responsible, and any
pattern or practice which may have brought about that death" and should
result in a publicly available written report. (24)
In Russia, the procuracy is the primary body responsible for ensuring
observance of human rights, including the procedural and other rights of
criminal suspects, defendants, and other
detainees. However, the procuracy also plays the principal role in
prosecuting crimes, as it is in charge of investigating certain categories
of criminal cases and prosecutes defendants in
court.
THE PROCESS OF DETENTION
I'm not an object that can just be locked up, and then be content when
they say sorry.
"Aslanbek Digaev"
Russian authorities began arresting men and women in connection with
the renewed armed conflict in September 1999. Arrests usually followed
three patterns: through identity checks at
checkpoints, within Chechnya or on Chechnya's borders with other republics;
as part of "mop-up" operations, immediately after Russian forces would
gain military control of a
community; and in other targeted sweeps of communities or households.
While many of those detained were released within hours, others have been
held for months-sometimes in
unacknowledged incommunicado detention, and often without charge. Russian
forces rarely cited any legal grounds for the detention. (25)
The pace of arrests greatly accelerated in January 2000, when General
Victor Kazantsev, the commander of the United Group of Forces in Chechnya,
ordered the closing Chechnya's
internal borders to all men and boys between the ages of ten and sixty.
Several days later, Russian authorities lifted the cross-border travel
ban, but continued to limit the movement of
men and boys within Chechnya, imposing a tough "identity verification
regime," whereby irregularities in one's identity documents--internal passports,
drivers' licenses and the
like--could be grounds for suspected affiliation with Chechen fighters.
General Kazantsev stated:
[The measure] is aimed at curbing the free moving of the militants under
the guise of peaceful civilians.... [Identity checks in liberated areas]
plus the toughening of search procedures at
checkpoints will put in very tough circumstances those who are inclined
to call to arms and kill by night. (26)
A broad and arbitrary interpretation of "irregularity"was often the
basis for detention for suspected rebel affiliation. Many men and women
have been detained simply because they were
staying in locations that were not their official, registered address;
or because police questioned the authenticity of their identity documents
as a pretext for detention. (27) One
interviewee told Human Rights Watch he was detained because his drivers'
license was issued during the inter-war period. Others were detained because
they share the same surname as
a known Chechen commander, or because they are perceived to have relatives
who are fighters. During the arrest, officers or soldiers commonly inspect
the bodies of men and women for
physical indications that they have been taking part in fighting, such
as bruises or other marks on the shoulders (caused by the backlash of a
rifle following gunfire), or calluses on the
elbows, knees or hands. Often, old non-fighting related injuries formed
the basis for arrest.
Arrests at Checkpoints and Border Crossings
Russian forces have established a dense network of checkpoints along
major routes within Chechnya, particularly those that lead to Chechnya's
borders with neighboring republics. It is
not uncommon for civilians to have to clear ten or fifteen checkpoints
to travel as many kilometers. Checkpoints range from heavily reinforced
structures, to ad-hoc and mobile ones
manned by just a few soldiers; at some checkpoints, police and soldiers
use shacks, metal containers, or pits dug in the ground as improvised detention
facilities. Civilians, particularly
fighting-age males, often face harassment and abuse at checkpoints,
and extortion is endemic.
"Issa Akhmadov," a twenty-one-year-old Grozny resident, was detained
on January 19 near Znamenskoye, in northern Chechnya, after passing through
about twenty checkpoints along
the way from Novy Grozny, about seventy-five kilometers to the southeast.
His arrest experience at the Kalaus checkpoint was typical: checkpoint
police said they found a problem with
his passport, would not disclose what the problem was, refused to tell
his mother where they were taking him, and forbade him from speaking with
her.
My mother and sister tried to stop them, but the soldiers cocked their
guns, aimed them at our mothers and said they had the right to shoot if
the women crossed the barrier. On the radio,
they called for a vehicle used to transport criminals. By the time
the vehicle arrived, they had checked everything in our pockets, all of
our papers. When I realized they wanted to detain
me and take me away, I asked the soldier if I could speak to my mother....
But the soldiers refused, saying they would inform the families themselves
as there was a panic. The women were
screaming, trying to do something. Two soldiers went to the barrier
with their guns, to prevent the women from crossing it. (28)
At some checkpoints, the authorities cross-check passport or other information
with a computerized database. However, when computers or radio links are
not available, detainees
sometimes remain in custody until they can be checked through the database.
"Adem Hasuev," for example, was on a bus to Ingushetia when he was detained
on January 17 near
Znamenskoye. Checkpoint police said they suspected that "Hasuev's"
passport was fake, and due to the lack of computers, he was held until
February 1.
They said that until they identified me, they would take me to Goragorskiy.
Then they said they have no computer there, so they took me to Znamenskoye
[about twenty-five kilometers
away] the next day. They said it would take ten days because [there
were so few checkpoint police] and there were many detainees. (29)
"Idris Batukaev" was arrested on December 16 at a checkpoint outside
Grozny because the OMON checkpoint police said they found his date of birth
and patronymic (his father's name)
suspicious. He was attempting to flee the fighting and travel to Ingushetia
with his family. (30) "Batukaev" was held for three days in a metal storage
container at the checkpoint, during
which time he was repeatedly beaten: "They beat me, shoving my shoulder
into the wall so that I would have bruises there, so they could say it
was from guns. They also beat me in the
legs." (31)
Human Rights Watch was able to document several cases of rape at checkpoints.
"Alisa Ebieva" and her sister-in-law, "Maya Selimurzaeva," were both detained,
beaten, and raped at the
Kavkaz border checkpoint in late January. (32) "Ebieva" told Human
Rights Watch:
When my sister-in-law and I were coming back to Ingushetia, we were
stopped at Kavkaz checkpoint. Instead of our passports, we had a form 9
[replacement travel document]. The
photograph on the form 9 was five years old and I looked different,
so the soldiers used this as an excuse. Also, my sister-in-law's name was
similar to the name of a Chechen commander.
(33)
"Ebieva" and "Selimurzaeva" were taken to separate metal storage containers
near the checkpoint. Four Russian soldiers in "Ebieva's" container accused
her of being a sniper. She told
Human Rights Watch that they gave her a gun and told her to dismantle
it, assemble it, and shoot, even though she reportedly never held a gun
and did not know how to handle one.
When she refused to handle the gun:
One soldier who was standing with his back to me punched me . . . and
I fell to the floor. Two other soldiers started kicking me. I had my children's
documents with me, and the soldiers
told me I had given birth to many children. The soldiers told me, "You
will never have children again," and beat me in the genital area. (34)
Some time later, "Maya Selimurzaeva" was brought into the metal storage
container where "Ebieva" was being held. "One of these soldiers said that
my sister- in-law had paid enough . . .
. She had blood everywhere, her mouth was cut." (35) "Selimurzaeva"
told "Ebieva" that she was raped. "Ebieva" told Human Rights Watch that
she too was raped, and that she spent
three months in bed recovering.
Arrests in the context of "mop-up" operations
The standard Russian strategy to gain control of Chechen communities
involved heavy bombardment, the entry of ground forces, and then a "mop-up"
operation to ensure that rebel
fighters had been flushed out and to arrest those who remained, as
well as their collaborators. During and after the "mop-up," soldiers commonly
went on house-to-house passport and
weapons checks. (36) They also arbitrarily rounded up men, and on some
occasions women, found in the area. Particularly vulnerable to arrest in
such operations were men who were not
in the village of their official, permanent residence.
For example, Russian forces detained "Khamid Taramov" during their February
3-5, 2000, sweep of Shaami Yurt because his propiska was for Grozny. "Taramov,"
together with eight
other men, was stripped and beaten on February 4. He related his experience
to Human Rights Watch:
I was at [my parents'] home . . . it is at the edge of the village,
there was a lot of work to do after the bombing, and I was in the yard.
They came and asked me for my papers, they asked me
why I was registered in Grozny and suggested I had come to Shaami Yurt
to fight. There were about fifteen of them, they were MVD or FSK. They
came in APCs.... People already taken
were on buses.... On my bus we were six to eight of us altogether,
two were local teachers who had retired. We were taken to the edge of the
village. (37)
The men were taken to a field, where they were stripped and examined.
We were held there approximately four hours. We were standing in dirt,
there was frost and snow at that time. We had to take off our clothes.
They checked our shoulders, looked for
callouses on our hands. They beat us--of course they beat us. I was
beaten a little, the normal way, with the butt of an automatic rifle. They
kicked me several times, in the kidneys. I was
almost knocked down. (38)
"Khamid Taramov" was eventually released from the field, but reported
that other detainees were still missing as of May 2000. During the Shaami
Yurt sweep operation on February 5,
Russian forces summarily executed twenty-three-year-old Akhmed Doshaev.
Villagers saw soldiers separate Doshaev and his brother, Alvi, from a group
of detainees and take them
under a bridge. Villagers found Doshaev's body several weeks later.
(39) Twenty-one year old Alvi Doshaev was still missing as of May 2000.
(40)
"Sultan Deniev" was detained with fifteen other men in the February
7, 2000, sweep of Gekhi Chu. (41) No reasons were given for their detention.
"Deniev" told Human Rights Watch that
after the shelling of Gekhi Chu had ended, he emerged with his family
from their basement and sought out Russian forces, fearing what would happen
if Russians discovered them in their
homes. The group of sixteen detainees was held "on [a] field behind
the village. They started to tell us we were bandits, we did nothing for
the motherland. They started to check our
identity. We are all from one village, [we] never had guns. [The others,]
they looked like farmers." (42) "Deniev" and the others were then transferred
to Khankala, and then to Tolstoy
Yurt; they were released on February 15.
In their mop-up operation of the Karpinsky district of Grozny on January
23, 2000, soldiers detained six males, including a thirteen-year-old deaf
boy and two men with mental disabilities.
(43) Although soldiers promised to release the six after checking their
documents, one remained in custody for three months, and three others were
in still in custody as of the end of
May. "Leyla Saigatova" described what happened that day.
I was in a shelter in our neighborhood and twice the soldiers came to
check us. They took off the men's clothes, made them strip completely,
the old as well as the young men. They
checked them for callouses and...scrapes and then left. Then again
they came in the afternoon, right to our basement. At that time, they took
the men. I said please don't take them, they
are our relatives, not fighters, but they took them, and said that
they would be thoroughly checked and then released. (44)
"Aslanbek Digaev," whom "Saigatova" named as one of the men detained that day, was independently located by Human Rights Watch.
There was a...passport check. I have never been involved in any military
operations. They came to our street, my wife and sisters were at home as
well. They took six with me, all of us
were with our relatives. None of them had been fighters.... When I
was detained, I asked where we were going. They said they would check our
documents and then be released." (45)
The men were initially taken to a military base at Solyonaia Balka,
a few kilometers from the Karpinsky district. After being held there overnight,
the thirteen-year-old boy was released,
and the others were taken to Khankala, and then to Chernokozovo. (46)
Arrests during targeted sweeps of communities
As of this writing, Russian authorities control most of Chechnya, and
perform periodic sweeps of communities under their control. These consist
of house-to-house weapons searches
and identity checks, ostensibly to ferret out fighters. Some of these
sweep operations have followed Chechen ambushes of Russian military convoys
or guerrilla-style attacks on other
installations. Chechen rebels have turned almost exclusively to hit-and-run
operations to carry on their military efforts against Russian forces. Human
Rights Watch is concerned that
arbitrary arrests of civilians will also become more commonplace.
The events in April in Serzhen Yurt illustrate this pattern. On April
24 and 26, 2000, Chechen fighters ambushed Russian convoys near Serzhen
Yurt, located at the mouth of a strategic
gorge. (47) Two days after the attack, Ministry of Internal Affairs
troops conducted a sweep during which they detained at least five men.
(48) Among them was "Khamzat Vakuev," who
was given no explanation before being beaten and then taken away, handcuffed,
with his feet tied together. He was released several days later. He told
Human Rights Watch:
They came to my house, they checked every house on the street. It was
in the morning, maybe 7:00 a.m., maybe even earlier. There were a lot of
them, maybe thirty.... I was beaten with a
rifle at my house, in the yard of my house. They did it with their
rifle butts, it was impossible to avoid the beatings, because they beat
me very hard. I was on the ground, covering my
head, I just took it.... At the house I was beaten, they kicked me,
and put me in handcuffs. My mother was in hysterics. They searched the
house, different places, in the rooms and
basements. They spent about fifteen or twenty minutes, more maybe....
They didn't ask for ID, they just beat me. They took me to a field, between
Serzhen Yurt and Shali, then there they
asked about papers. I said mine were at home, and they beat us. (49)
"Vakuev" was held for two days, outdoors in two separate encampments,
before his relatives paid a bribe to secure his release. The other men
detained with him were also released after
several days.
On April 27, Russian forces conducted a sweep of Tsotsin Yurt. They
surrounded one section of the village and did house-to-house searches,
vandalized and looted personal property,
ill-treated some villagers, and detained six men. On May 2, two of
the detained men were left for dead by the side of the road, one of whom
died only half an hour after he was found and
brought home. (50)
Russian forces also target specific individuals for arrest apart from
sweep or mop-up operations. Fifty-two-year-old "Asya Arsimakova," for example,
was sought out by name and
arrested in the early morning hours of January 25, although Russian
police failed to produce a warrant or explanation for her arrest.
It was 6:00 a.m. I got up to pray and heard a car coming, and then as
soon as I heard the car coming they knocked at the door. They jumped over
the gate and surrounded our house.
They said that they had been informed about us. My husband opened the
door, and I was surprised, they were all masked. One said "Who is '[Asya]'?"
I said "I am." They said "we came
to take you, get ready." I asked him where I was being taken, and he
didn't respond.... We came up to the car and they put me in it, and then
they took my son. I asked why and they said,
"if you don't keep quiet we'll take you all." (51)
"Arsimakova" was transferred the same day to Chernokozovo, where she
was questioned about involvement in an alleged hostage exchange, and released
approximately February 19 or
20 without charge.
THE CHERNOKOZOVO DETENTION CENTER
Introduction
During January and early February 2000, the remand prison at Chernokozovo,
about sixty kilometers northwest of Grozny, was the principal destination
for those detained in Chechnya. It
quickly became infamous for savage torture of detainees. Forms of torture
included prolonged beatings, beatings to the genitals and to the soles
of the feet, rape, electric shocks, tear
gas, and other methods. (52) Guards also subjected detainees to profound
humiliation and degrading treatment. At least one person was beaten to
death. Often prison guards and other
law enforcement officers would use torture to coerce confessions or
testimony; just as often, however, it had no apparent purpose.
Because of the extent and severity of the allegations of abuse at Chernokozovo,
Human Rights Watch carried out a detailed investigation into the facility,
confirming and collaborating
accounts of beatings, torture, and rape there. Human Rights Watch calls
for a full investigation by the Russian authorities of what happened at
Chernokozovo in January and February
2000, for those responsible for human rights violations committed there
to be brought to justice, and for compensation to be granted to victims
or their relatives.
Human Rights Watch independently located and conducted interviews with
nineteen former detainees from Chernokozovo, including two women. In addition,
the Memorial Human
Rights Center, a prominent Russian group with a research presence in
Ingushetia, shared with Human Rights Watch their material from interviews
with other former Chernokozovo
detainees. Taken together, these lengthy interviews yield a detailed
picture of the abuses detainees sustained. From the time they entered the
Chernokozovo facility, when Russian
guards would force them to run a gauntlet of guards who would beat
them mercilessly, through their stay in cramped and sordid conditions,
to the time they were released, detainees had
no relief from torment.
Before 1991, the prison complex at Chernokozovo had a capacity of 1,500
prisoners, possibly as a post-conviction labor colony. It fell into a state
of disrepair during the interbellum years
and detainees said that in January and February 2000, only part of
the complex was being used. (53) It was the only detention facility operating
in Chechnya at the time, with its outer
perimeters guarded by Ministry of Justice employees and with Ministry
of Internal Affairs employees staffing it within. (54) Eventually the Ministry
of Justice established full jurisdiction
over it.
It is clear, however, that the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) presided
over Chernokozovo from at least January 11 until early February, its most
brutal phase. It is difficult to ascertain
which MVD divisions were serving in the facility and perpetrating the
abuse. Fearing identification and possible future retribution, Russian
soldiers in Chechnya frequently wore
camouflage uniforms with no division patches or pins that would identify
them. However, six interviewees indicated that the Rostov OMON supplied
the guards and commanded the
facility during this period. (55)
Detainees described the area of the Chernokozovo prison where they were
held as a single-story building, with cells along a corridor near the entrance
to the building. Because guards
forbade them from raising their eyes from the floor, most detainees
had difficulty describing the facilities, but said that there were approximately
eighteen cells along a corridor, and
interrogation rooms were on the same corridor at the end of the hall.
The guards had a duty room in the middle of the corridor. Other corridors
branched off the hall but no detainee was
able to describe where they led or what took place there. Women were
held separately in at least two cells on or just off the main corridor.
Space does not permit a full description of the cramped, filthy, and
sordid conditions detainees encountered in January and February 2000. Nearly
every interviewee described severe
overcrowding, sometimes more than thirty inmates for a cell meant for
eight, often with no beds, let alone bedding. Food rations were extremely
poor, there was no medical treatment, and
for many there were no toilet facilities, not even a bucket in the
cell. Despite the winter cold, many, if not all, of the cells were unheated.
The most serious abuse persisted at Chernokozovo for two months, even
as news of it, provided by the few detainees who were able to bribe their
way to liberty, began to spread.
Conditions improved somewhat following the visit of a Russian "commission"
during the first week of February, although many detainees were merely
removed temporarily to conceal the
extent of abuse. Shortly afterwards, the command of the facility rotated
to another MVD division, the guards were replaced, structural improvements
were made to the prison, including
the addition of more cots for the detainees, and ill or injured detainees
were transferred to the Naur district hospital. Detainees also noted an
improvement in their treatment within the
prison. As it embarked on the cleanup, Russian President Vladimir Putin's
press secretary claimed that Chernokozovo was under the authority of the
Ministry of Justice, although this
was never formally confirmed. (56)
This "cleanup" coincided with growing international outrage at the reports
of human rights violations in Chechnya, and the call by such institutions
as the Council of Europe and the
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to send delegations to the
republic. As international demand for access to Chernokozovo increased,
many detainees were transferred to other
facilities outside Chechnya, including regular prison facilities.
As of at least March, when the Council of Europe's Committee for the
Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
(CPT) first visited Chernokozovo, the
detention facility was referred to as a pre-trial detention center
(sledstvennyi izolator, or SIZO), which falls under the authority of the
Ministry of Justice under Russian law. (57)
Beatings and other torture at Chernokozovo
From early January until the change of command in early February, detainees
at Chernokozovo were subjected to constant and severe beatings and many
forms of torture. Beatings
began as soon as the detainees arrived at the facility, and continued
throughout their stay. Some of the beatings and torture seemed to be associated
with interrogations of detainees;
many others appear to have be a consequence of gratuitous cruelty,
vengeance, or a desire to have "fun" on the part of the guards.
The Human Corridor
When we just arrived in Chernokozovo, we were welcomed to hell, and it really was hell. (58)
All former detainees from Chernokozovo interviewed by Human Rights Watch
gave very similar accounts about their arrival at the facility. They were
met by a group of guards who
formed a human corridor of two lines. Guards forced the detainees to
run, their hands behind their heads, through this gauntlet while beating
them with rubber batons, hammers, and rifle
butts. Some of the guards wore masks. "Alvi Khanaev," who was brought
to Chernokozovo on January 19, described this intake process:
There were about twenty of them [guards], ten on each side. Some of
them were masked, some had rubber sticks.... I was the third [to go through].
There was some officer ordering "next."
Each of us had to jump out of the vehicle, put his hands behind his
head with his head down, and run. As we ran through the corridor, the soldiers
were kicking us and beating us with
rubber sticks and whatever they had in their hands. (59)
"Alimkhan Visaev," who arrived at Chernokozovo in late January, gave
a very similar account of the scene: "We were ordered to run down the corridor
with our hands behind our head.
The soldiers were standing in two lines outside. We had to run through
them, being hit with batons and kicked." (60)When twenty-one-year-old "Issa
Akhmadov" arrived at
Chernokozovo in early January, the corridor was not yet ready, and
so detainees were beaten as it was being prepared:
We were kept [waiting] for twenty minutes.... We learned later that
they were preparing the corridor from the vehicle to the jail. About fifteen
or twenty soldiers were standing in two lines,
with their rubber sticks. When each of us stepped out [of the vehicle],
the soldier pushed us with his gun. They then beat us with rubber night
sticks and made us lay down. Then one
[soldier] asked whether the corridor was ready. Others replied that
it was, and we were ordered one by one to run through to the building.
When I was running through the corridor, each
soldier hit me with his stick. (61)
At least one person, thirty-two year-old Aindi Kovtorashvilli, died
from beatings while "running the corridor." According to his relatives,
Kovtorashvilli had a serious shrapnel wound to
his head when he was detained on January 11 in Tolstoy-Yurt. After
a three-week search for Kovtorashvilli, an aunt finally located his body
at the morgue at the Mozdok military base.
(62)
Human Rights Watch interviewed separately three men who were transported
with Kovtorashvilli from Tolstoy-Yurt to Chernokozovo and who witnessed
the beating that appeared to kill
him. "Abdul Jambekov" related to Human Rights Watch how Kovtorashvilli
died January 11, soon after their arrival in Chernokozovo:
His name was Aindi, I do not know his surname. He was wounded, he had
shrapnel in his head and couldn't talk. We only spent several hours on
the bus while riding from Tolstoy-Yurt. I
don't know anything else about him. He was in front of me on the bus.
They called out his name, but he was like a small child because of his
injuries and someone needed to help him.
So I tried to help him, and then one guy with a mask said "I said, one
by one," and because I tried to go with him they struck me, then they started
beating him. Then it was my turn....
They just pulled him like a dust broom and just threw his body away,
in front of us. It was useless even trying to bandage him, he was dead.
(63)
"Issa Habuliev" told Human Rights Watch that he was transported from
Tolstoy-Yurt to Chernokozovo on January 11 with Kovtorashvilli, whom he
identified only as a man with a
Georgian last name and a gangrenous head wound. According to "Habuliev,"
"He was wounded, but while crossing the gauntlet they continued to beat
him. He died right there, he was
right next to me."
A third witness who had arrived on the same bus from Tolstoy-Yurt confirmed the death of Kovtarashvilli:
[A man] who was wounded, they beat him on the head, so that he died.
He was about 180 [centimeters tall].... He was in the first group to come
out of the bus. He had an open wound on
his head, he was confused, he didn't understand anything. He had received
one blow on the place on his head where he was injured, he fell down and
then three more guys [guards] came
and surrounded him and started to violently beat him. When I looked
at him he was bleeding, there was a puddle of blood around him.... When
I came through [the gauntlet] he was still
alive, they said to stand up but he couldn't, and that is why they
got angry and then constantly beat him. (64)
When Kovtorashvilli's aunt saw the body at the morgue she noted that,
"My nephew had a hole in his head. His hands had been fractured, and on
the body there were traces of
beatings." (65)
"Fatimah Akhmedova," a female detainee at Chernokozovo, witnessed the
brutal beating of a retarded fourteen-year-old boy when she arrived at
Chernokozovo on February 1. After she
was allowed to walk through the corridor of soldiers without being
beaten, the soldiers called for the young boy:
I heard the soldiers say, "You brought us a clown here, let the clown
go next," referring to the fourteen-year-old. I started to explain that
he really could not comprehend what was
happening, and asked [the soldiers] not to beat him. Then I looked
back and I saw the soldiers putting on their masks. They started to beat
the boy with batons, and they kicked him. The
boy screamed, calling for his mother and asking for God's help. [He]
was beaten for an hour. He was bleeding from the mouth, and had a head
injury and was having trouble breathing.
Then, when the boy was laying flat on the ground, they kicked him and
said, "Why are you bleeding? Stand up!" Then I fainted, and a soldier took
me to the doctor. (66)
Torture in the Context of Interrogations
Prisoners taken for interrogation were beaten and tortured, both on
the way to interrogation and, according to some, during questioning in
the interrogation room itself. Beatings prior to
questioning were aimed at "softening up" a suspect to encourage compliance
during questioning. Guards and interrogators also sought to humiliate detainees,
forcing them to crawl into
interrogation rooms and to address staff with abject humility. Torture
worsened at night, when many interrogations seemed to take place and when
the guards utterly ran amok. While in
some cases documented by Human Rights Watch beatings did not take place
during interrogations, case investigators probably had knowledge of their
occurrence and took no effective
action to prevent them or punish the perpetrators.
According to multiple Human Rights Watch interviewees, questioning took
place in two rooms located at the end of the main corridor of prison cells.
As is standard practice elsewhere in
Russia, prisoners were forbidden to look up as they walked along the
corridor. Guards, some wearing masks, forbade prisoners from making eye
contact with them. Detainees were
sometimes called for multiple questioning, and thus were subjected
to beatings and other abuse several times. (67) Guards also meted out beatings
as they took prisoners to locations
within the facility other than the interrogation room.
Several detainees said that guards tortured them during interrogations
in an attempt to force them to give information, confess, or sign a statement
or other documents prepared by the
authorities. "Abdul Jambekov" was interrogated, beaten, and humiliated
in Chernokozovo, where he was detained from January 11 until February 18:
They took me from the cell, asked me when I was arrested and for certain
facts. They read me the interrogation report and I signed it, because it
was my own words. Then they brought me
the warrant for my arrest, and I refused to sign that. They started
to beat me, and said that they would shoot me if I didn't sign. There were
four of them, two behind me and two in front.
Those sitting had no ID, but those walking around had badges on. They
beat me with truncheons and sticks, also with iron tubes. They did this
whenever you didn't answer their
question. There were two guys behind me, they had masks on, and they
were ready, just waiting to beat you if you didn't answer their questions.
They wanted me to sign a piece of
paper. I asked if it was possible to read, even to look at the papers
that I was supposed to sign but they didn't let me. They said I should
just sign it." (68)
"Jambekov" also described the humiliation guards subjected him to:
They would make us say "Comrade Colonel, let me crawl to you" but he
wasn't a colonel, that was just his dream. After they beat us, they made
us say "thank you," and if you couldn't
even stand then they would still make you say "thank you" and crawl
away. (69)
As of early May, "Jambekov" still suffered from the medical consequences
of the beatings in detention. According to his mother, X-rays taken in
April revealed three broken ribs, and the
doctor's diagnoses also included prolapsed kidneys, problems with his
liver, and an irregular heartbeat. She also reported that "Jambekov" had
developed a stammer and has other
neurological ailments (confusion, headaches), which his doctor attributed
to beatings sustained to the head. (70)
Guards at Chernokozovo often focused their beatings on the testicles
of male inmates, causing excruciating pain and long-term health problems
for their victims. According to "Yakub
Tasuev," "They asked if I was married or not. If someone was unmarried,
they said 'You will never have children,' and kicked them [in the testicles]."
(71) "Sultan Eldarbiev" told Human
Rights Watch that on February 7, as he was being taken for questioning
around 10:00 or 11:00 p.m., he saw guards beating two men in the genital
area:
I saw a man during questioning, crouched naked with his hands over his
head. I turned and saw [another] naked man. Two men [guards] separated
his legs. [Another man] tried to force
him to sign a [confession] saying he was a fighter, cut off heads,
traded in people. They kicked down on his genitals, saying "You will sign
it! You will sign it!" (72)
Human Rights Watch located and interviewed separately the man whom "Sultan
Eldarbiev" saw being kicked in that incident. "Ali Baigiraev," aged thirty-four,
described how guards
took him from his cell late at night on February 7, and openly discussed
whether or not to rape him before administering a brutal beating:
It was February 7, late at night. I was lying on the floor, two guards
held my legs while another kicked me in the testicles. I would lose consciousness
and come to, I lost consciousness
four times. They hit me around the head, there was blood. They would
beat me unconscious and wait until I came round: "He's woken up," and they
would come in and beat me [again].
(73)
"Baigiraev" lost a testicle as a result of injuries sustained during
the February 7 beatings. He was still recovering in the hospital, more
than two months after the beating, when he was
interviewed by Human Rights Watch. (74)
According to "Baigiraev," the second man mentioned by "Sultan Eldarbiev"
was a twenty-seven-year-old man from Staraia Sunzha district of Grozny:
"I didn't understand [at the time]
what was happening, but I saw this naked man. I saw guards holding
the man on a chair, and he was screaming like he was being castrated. He
told me later that they held his testicles
with pliers, and beat him there with batons." (75)
Thirty-two-year-old "Ibrahim Aziev" told Human Rights Watch that guards beat his feet during interrogation on January 21:
When I was taken for questioning, the investigator tried to force me
to sign a confession, this happened on my second day at Chernokozovo [January
21]. On the way to, during, and on
the way back from questioning I was beaten with rubber sticks on my
shoulders and back. [Then] they made me lie on the ground, with my feet
raised, and beat the soles of my feet. They
wanted me to sign an article 208 confession, saying I participated
in the fighting. (76)
"Ibrahim Aziev" was unable to walk for two weeks after his release because of the pain caused by the falanga beatings.
Thirty-two-year-old "Yakub Tasuev" also told Human Rights Watch how he had experienced falanga torture at Chernokozovo in early February:
They used the iron part of their sticks [batons] to beat me on the bottom
of my feet. They put a cloth in my mouth so I couldn't scream, and they
handcuffed me. They made me lay down
on my stomach with my head under the table. They took off my boots
and socks, and beat my soles, especially on the heels. Then they made me
stand against the wall with my hands up,
lifted my shirt and beat me on the kidneys with the sticks.... These
beatings took place mostly in the interrogation room, but also in the corridor
on the way to interrogation. (77)
"Sultan Eldarbiev" told Human Rights Watch that one of the men in his
cell, a twenty-five-year-old man from the Karpinsky district of Grozny,
was beaten so badly on his feet that he
could no longer walk: "He couldn't walk, he had been beaten on the
soles of his feet and had broken ribs. His feet were black and he had open
wounds on the soles of his feet." (78)
Several detainees said that electric shocks were used during the interrogations. According to "Umar Khakimov," who was held in Chernokozovo from February 5 to 12:
They also used electric power, they made you touch the wires. They just
give you the wires and you are not allowed to see what it is, you just
have to grab it. When I touched the wires, I
felt like my eyes were going to pop out. This was in the interrogation
room. They made you stand with your hands up. Two soldiers hold you from
behind and make you touch the wires.
They shocked me like this once. After the interrogation, they took
me back to my cell. I was unable to walk out because of the pain, and had
to crawl back. (79)
"Sultan Eldarbiev" was also subjected to electric shock:
They tried to make me sign confessions that we were wahhabis, (80) fighters,
that we were supporting the fighters. I did not sign. They used electric
shock to make me sign, but I did not
do it. I was forced to put my back to the wall. Two guards stood next
to me, my hands were on my head. There were two cables, and they held the
cables to my body. I felt I was going
crazy, I fell unconscious once. I was afraid my heart would stop beating.
They splashed water in my face. Two or three times during the interrogation,
they shocked me. (81)
"Alimkhan Visaev," detained in Chernokozovo for eighteen days from late
January and early February, was brutally beaten during interrogation the
first day he was transferred to
Chernokozovo:
The interrogator was in camouflage, he was a high-ranking officer....
When my name was called, I had to leave the cell with my hands behind my
head until the guard locked the cell. I was
then brought to the interrogation room, while the soldier accompanying
me beat me with his rubber stick. When I entered the interrogation room,
I was ordered to sit on a chair. I was
asked whether I was a fighter, and where I was hiding weapons.
There were two guards, one on each side and the interrogator behind
his desk facing me. One guard had a gun, the other had a baton. They would
ask questions and I would reply, the
interrogator then would say, "Answer now!" and the soldiers were beating
me. I was hit with the rifle butt on my neck, with a bat on my back, and
[they] hit me on the head, shoulders
and ribs with the baton.
I was interrogated for a half hour or more. When I said, "No I'm not
a fighter," they said, "Now you'll remember," and beat me. The interrogation
room had concrete walls, three meters
wide and four meters long, with a chair and a desk for the interrogator
and a chair for the detainee. I was taken for interrogation three of four
times, with the same questions and the same
beatings, but different interrogators. I saw the interrogator's face,
but the guards wore masks. (82)
"Issa Akhmadov" was interrogated first on January 17, the day he was transferred to Chernokozovo.
I noticed it was getting dark. I made my evening and night prayers.
Just as I finished, I was called out again. As I stepped out of the cell,
I was struck in the back of the neck and fell to the
floor. They ordered me to crawl along the corridor, which was twenty
meters long. I tried to crawl and one of the soldiers was kicking me in
the kidney, and another in the shoulder. A
third was walking behind me, with a gun pointing at me. This way I
was made to crawl through the corridor and enter the investigator's office.
(83)
During questioning "Akhmadov" was accused of being a fighter:
They asked me what fighters I knew, I said I had seen Basayev and others
on TV but did not know any fighters myself. Then the interrogator told
the soldiers to take me away. It lasted
about twenty minutes. On the way back to the cell, I was beaten again
by three soldiers. They beat me against the wall, threw me against the
floor and beat me on the head. I was put back
in the cell and the next one was taken. (84)
The day after his interrogation, "Akhmadov" and his cellmates were ordered
to leave their cell for a security check. In the corridor, the men were
forced to walk through a gauntlet of
guards, one of whom struck Akhmadov with a hammer, causing him pain
for months. He described the incident to Human Rights Watch:
They were checking the jail to see if we were trying to escape. They
made us run to the cold room...with fifteen soldiers beating us there and
back. Among the soldiers were two with big
metal [sledge] hammers. When I was running from the cell to the cold
room, I was struck by the hammer on my backbone, and on the way back I
was struck on my leg. The other men that
were there with me had ribs broken, shoulder blades broken, or a knee
broken. (85)
When interviewed by Human Rights Watch almost one month after this incident,
"Akhmadov" still bore the signs of the injury. He walked with extreme difficulty,
and was on strong
painkillers to control his constant back pain. His cellmate, twenty-year-old
"Adem Hasuev," independently described the same incident. (86)
"Movsar Larsanov," detained in Chernokozovo from mid-January until March
1, noted that he was beaten and humiliated as he was taken to and from
the interrogation room, but not
during questioning.
As soon as you would leave the cell, they would beat you, they would
shout at you the whole time. As soon as you came to the room...first they
would beat you and then you would
have to lie down on the floor and crawl to them. You would have to
say, "Request permission to crawl." Me personally, they beat me on the
knees, with clubs, and on the kidneys. They
kicked me in the chest [and I fell]. I stood up and they beat me again,
they kickedme in the chest and said stand up, and again, and again, and
again, until I couldn't stand up any more.
(87)
"Akhmed Isaev," held in Chernokozovo from January 19 to 30, had a very
similar experience that confirmed the practice described by "Larsanov."
He was beaten on the way to and from
interrogation, but the case investigator, whom he described as a man
with a reddish beard, did not harm him:
[On January 19], we were taken for interrogation one by one. When the
door was opened and somebody was called out, he had to step out of the
cell, fall on his knees, put his hand
behind his head and face against the wall. Two or three guards were
beating us. They were wearing masks and did not let us look into their
eyes. I was shown the opened door which was
about fifteen meters away. I was ordered to fall down and crawl.
They ordered me...when I reached the door, to...say the words, "Citizen
Officer, thank you for seeing me. I am [gives name]. According to your
order, I have crawled up here." They also
said that the faster I would crawl, the less hits I would get. They
laughed, saying I crawled like a "Wahhabi."
I reached the door, entered the room, and one guard beat me with an
iron rod.... The interrogation lasted about forty minutes. I was beaten
when I entered the room, and when it was over.
There were two people in the room, and two guards outside the room.
The one who asked the questions had a knitted cap and reddish beard. Each
of us had been interrogated and then
sent to a different cell. (88)
Like Isaev, "Alvi Khanaev," was brought to Chernokozovo on January 19
and said he was questioned by a man with a reddish beard who did not harm
him. He also was beaten before
being interrogated, and was forced to strip before the questioning
began, which he said took place at 5:00 a.m. "Khanaev" stressed to Human
Rights Watch that he remained stripped of
his clothes during the interrogation, but that "[the prosecutor's]
attitude towards me was not one of animosity." At the end of the questioning,
"Khanaev" begged the investigator to ask
the guards not to beat him on the way back to the cell. The investigator's
secretary indicated to the guards not to harm Khanaev, but they beat him
and the other men on the way to the
cell anyway. (89)
Night Beatings: "They were out of control" (90)
At night guards at Chernokozovo were apparently given free reign for
wanton abuse and humiliation. It was then that the most brutal treatment
occurred. Many detainees noted that the
playing of loud music would signal the start of the "night time regime,"
when guards, often inebriated, would conducted mock interrogations, during
which they would mete out severe
beatings or other forms of torture to those who did not comply. They
would also force detainees to engage in humiliating acts. "Magomed Habuev,"
reflecting on the nighttime regime,
commented, "During the day, you might be beaten with clubs, but at
night, there was no way to be able to deal with that kind of torture."
(91)
"Ali Baigiraev"described being brutally beaten at night, during which time he said beatings were more severe than those during the day. On the night of February 7:
It was a beating, not an interrogation. They took me out of the cell,
I don't know how many there were. Three or four were beating me with sticks
and kicking me. By the time I reached the
interrogation room, I was already very weak. When I entered the room,
there were about ten people. They didn't ask any questions, they started
beating me. They beat me, beat me, beat
me, and I fell down. Only after I fell down did they start asking questions.
But you have no strength to answer, because they put you against the wall
and start beating you again.
They beat me on the head, saying I was very strong. Then they banged
my head against the wall. The last time I regained consciousness, I started
sitting up and I saw the feet of the
soldiers, and they said, "He's coming to. They asked me if I had children.
I said I did and they answered, "You won't have any more," and they kicked
me in my private parts. Then I lost
consciousness again. I didn't regain consciousness, I just heard them
saying, "Let's drag him into the cell." They ordered me to stand up but
I couldn't. They dragged me into the cell. My
jacket and hat remained in the interrogation room and I never got them
back. (92)
"Aslanbek Digaev," detained from January 25 until February 18 in Chernokozovo,
showed a Human Rights Watch researcher a scar on his head that extended
from the level of his ear up
towards the crown of his head, the result, he said, of a blow from
the butt of a rifle which he received during a nighttime mock interrogation.
There was also unofficial "questioning," when they were drunk, in the
same interrogation rooms, with no papers. They would act as if they were
generals. I [can't count] the number of
times I was taken for "unofficial questioning." At 7:00 p.m., they
turned on the music, and it lasted until morning. I have scars on my head,
my nose and ribs were broken. [My head] was
bleeding.... They were maniacs, they enjoyed it. (93)
Humiliating "games"
At night, primarily, guards played abusive "games" with the prisoners.
Many detainees described being forced to perform humiliating acts for guards,
often when the guards were drunk.
Guards rode on top of "Aslanbek Digaev" while he was on his hands and
knees. He described this to Human Rights Watch, "They forced us to kneel
down, in the corridor, and sat on
top of us, and would act as if they were in a car. They played these
kinds of games in the corridor." (94)
"Abdul Jambekov" also reported being forced by guards to participate in humiliating "games":
They also had a separate room, it was covered with blood, at the end
of the hall. There were some broken chairs in there. They rode people there,
sitting on top of them, beating them with
clubs. They made me crawl, saying that I would have to crawl such a
distance in such a time. If not, then you had to do it again. We were taken
there one by one, they beat me, and
others. (95)
Describing this humiliation, "Jambekov" became visibly distressed and physically agitated.
Others described how the guards forced them to run up and down the corridor;
if the guards were not satisfied with the speed, they made the detainee
repeat the exercise. (96) Another
interviewee described how guards piled detainees on top of each other
in the corridor, so that they were laying across each other two by two.
The guards then beat them when this
"tower" collapsed. (97)
Another form of torture which was reportedly administered at Chernokozovo
was the application of a heated brick to the body of detainees. Forty-four-year-old
"Magomed Kantiev" told
Human Rights Watch that guards had burned him with heated bricks on
his back on several occasions:
I was forced to strip to the waist, and lie on the floor. Then the guards
would put an ordinary house brick which they had heated with a lamp on
my back, and another soldier would stand
on the brick. I was subjected to this on numerous occasions. Whether
the brick left burns depended on how much it had been heated. At some point
I had blisters on my back.... Day by
day, they get better. But there are still psychological scars, they
will not heal. (98)
Physical Exhaustion
Most former detainees reported that they were forced to stand in exhausting
positions, such as with their hands above their heads facing a wall, for
extended periods of time, sometimes
for an entire day. Guards beat those who failed to sustain this position.
At least two of those interviewed indicated that rather than put their
hands against the wall, they were ordered to
stand facing the wall with their palms facing backwards. (99)
Guards regularly checked cells to make sure detainees were standing in the ordered positions. According to "Akhmed Isaev":
At 6:00 a.m., we were woken up, sometimes earlier. We were allowed to
go to bed at 11:00 p.m. We had to stand the whole day long. The cell was
very small, and when the guards looked
through the peep hole they could not see one corner. We took turns
going to this corner to get some rest. We had to face the wall and keep
our hands up, the whole day. (100)
"Alvi Khanaev" confirmed that those who could not endure standing attempted
to hide in the corner. "Naturally, from time to time we dropped our hands,
because it was impossible to
stand like this, although we knew we would be punished." (101)
Guards punished not only those who dropped their arms, but sometimes
also the entire cell. "Adem Hasuev" told Human Rights Watch: "Sometimes,
you get tired and drop your hands,
in this case, they beat everyone." (102) According to "Alimkhan Visaev,"
"[t]he soldiers watched us through the peep hole. If we dropped our hands
or sat down, we would be taken out
and beaten. One man [from Grozny], sat down once, he was taken out
and beaten brutally." (103)
"Ali Baigiraev" and his cellmates were forced to stand as a punishment,
after one of them had been examined by a visiting Russian delegation on
February 9 or 10. "They made all the
people in the cell stand with their hands up all night. But I couldn't
stand on [any] feet, so the others were ordered to keep us standing, otherwise
they would also be beaten, all of them."
(104)
Prison guards frequently used teargas in the cells of detainees, causing
coughing fits and breathing problems for the unprotected inmates. Eight
detainees, including Radio Liberty
correspondent Andrei Babitsky, confirmed the use of teargas at Chernokozovo
in interviews with Human Rights Watch. Twenty-four-year old "Akhmed Isaev"
(not his real name)
explained: "They asked us if we wanted to smoke, and when someone went
to the door to take the cigarettes they would spray teargas inside instead
of [giving] the cigarettes. They did
this about six different times." (105)
At other times, guards used teargas to punish detainees when they violated
the rigid rules of the facility. One detainee related how his cell was
sprayed with teargas when the detainees
could no longer endure the physical demands placed upon them: "They
would do this when someone let down their hands or sat down. The guard
would open the peephole and say,
'Hah, you are sitting down, now I'm going to get you,' and spray the
gas." (106)
Rape
Reports of rape at Chernokozovo emerged, despite the strong taboo in
Chechen culture against revealing instances of sexual assault. Chechnya's
Muslim culture and national traditions
strictly regulate relations between men and women, and inappropriate
behavior is subject to severe and often violent sanctions. Unmarried women
who have been raped are unlikely to be
able to marry, and married women who are raped are likely to be divorced
by their husbands. In the patriarchal and homophobic Chechen society, rape
and sexual assault of men is
particularly difficult to discuss. Yet more than half of those interviewed
by Human Rights Watch alleged that guards raped and sexually assaulted
male and female detainees at
Chernokozovo, although these allegations require further confirmation.
Although none of the interviewees explicitly stated that he or she was
a victim of rape, several did describe abuse
rising to the level of sexual assault and provided credible evidence
of rape in the facility.
Some women were forced to strip in front of the male guards. "Fatimah
Akhmedova" described to Human Rights Watch one incident of forced nudity
during an interrogation at
Chernokozovo:
On the first day of February at around midnight or so, I was called
out for questioning. They forced me to strip and [accused me of being a
fighter or sniper]. I was questioned by eight
people, three were doctors in military uniforms, two of those [doctors]
were brought to me when I was sick. I was stripped only for questioning.
I saw all of them, one looked like an
Uzbek. They questioned me for one half hour, they shouted and swore
at me, that if I didn't tell the truth they would keep me there until I
died. I was taken out once on [February 1] and
three times on the second day.
Male prisoners also reported incidents of forced nudity, usually in
the context of severe torture to the genital area. (107) Sexual violence
in the form of forced nudity served to inflict
psychological humiliation upon detainees, and added to Chernokozovo's
environment of terror and intimidation. (108) Forced nudity also served
as a precursor to additional sexual
violence described by male and female detainees.
"Alvi Khanaev," who was transferred to Chernokozovo on January 19, reported that one woman arrested with him was raped the first night they spent at Chernokozovo.
The woman that was with us in the vehicle [name withheld] was forty-two
years old and has four children, she is from Tolstoy-Yurt. That evening,
when men were interrogated, that
woman was beaten mercilessly. Judging from the noise, I could guess
that she was being beaten with the rubber sticks, she was beaten. She was
beaten for ten or fifteen minutes, with
some pauses of one or two minutes. Then, for half an hour we didn't
hear her at all. We could hear everything that was going on in the jail,
but could not see everything. In half an hour,
we understood that she had been raped. The soldiers were using bad
language and this lasted for about thirty minutes. Then everything stopped.
Human Rights Watch was unable to confirm independently this or several
other accounts of rape of women. The difficulties inherent in documenting
such abuse are enormous. In the
patriarchal and homophobic Chechen society, speaking of rape and sexual
assault is taboo. Women detainees may have feared to admit that any of
the women were raped in the facility,
aware of the social stigma and shame associated with rape.
Human Rights Watch did gather detailed testimony relating to physical
evidence of anal rape of men in Chernokozovo. "Ibrahim Aziev" claimed that
his cellmate told him that he had
been raped on January 23, the day before Aziev arrived at Chernokozovo.
Aziev described the victim as young, about fifteen years old, and attractive.
"When I saw him, he was just like a
corpse. He was breathing, but nothing more. They didn't take him again
while I was there. He said he was raped, those were his words." (109)
"Sultan Eldarbiev," held in Chernokozovo from February 5 until February 11, said that a man from his cell was sodomized with a truncheon.
They raped with a baton a thirty-two or thirty-three-year-old, [name
withheld]. When he was brought round, he was brought to our cell naked,
with his clothes in his hands. There was
dried blood leading from his anus, he didn't sign [a confession]. I
was in cell 16. (110)
"Ali Baigiraev," who was held in the same cell with "Sultan Eldarbiev," and who had been severely beaten in the genitals, was himself threatened with rape:
I heard the soldiers say while they were kicking me on the floor, "Let's
fuck him." Then they said "Let's not dirty ourselves" (Ne budem pachkatsia).
When I was taken for "questioning"
I was beaten and they said "Let's fuck him." "Let's question him,"
I was taken from the cell, and by the time I got to the questioning room,
I was already only half-conscious. I was taken
from this room to another where they said they would fuck me. (111)
Several interviewees said that guards gave male rape victims a woman's
name as a nickname, and teased them later about the rape. "Alvi Khanaev"
told Human Rights Watch that on
several occasions he heard guards tease and beat men in the corridor.
He described one incident that began with guards ordering the victim out
of his cell:
You could hear everything. Then the soldiers ordered him to undress.
Then... something was done to him, [sodomy]. We heard him say, "please,
please, don't!" This continued for about
five minutes. After all this happened, the victim said, "You have killed
me." They renamed him Alla, they said, "From now on, you will be Alla,
a woman." (112)
Possibly describing the same incident, "Alimkhan Visaev" said that his cellmate had been raped during the last week of January or the first week of February.
They took one of the men from my cell and raped him. They gave him a
nickname, Tania or Natasha. He was about twenty years old…. They raped
him and threw him into our cell, and the
next day they took him to a different cell. The man cried "It hurts,
it hurts, don't do it....You have killed me." (113)
The "Cleanup"
As international attention focused on the human rights violations in
Chechnya, intergovernmental organizations--particularly the Council of
Europe--began to pressure Russia to accept
official visiting delegations to the region. At about the same time,
Russian authorities orchestrated a cleanup of Chernokozovo. Clearly aware
by this time that inmates were being
tortured, the authorities improved somewhat the physical conditions,
and by February 10, ensured that the guards who had perpetrated the worst
abuses were rotated out. At the same
time, Moscow authorities vehemently denied any abuse had taken place
in Chernokozovo, and delayed the international community's access to the
facility. Improvements, at first, were
cosmetic, and inmates were merely taken out temporarily to conceal
from the first round of visitors the degree of overcrowding and to hide
some of the inmates who had been severely
abused.This pattern was repeated prior to the February 24-March 3 trip
by the CPT to Chechnya, which included a visit to Chernokozovo. Then, as
more international bodies demanded
and received access to Chernokozovo, conditions improved radically;
indeed, by April it had become a showcase.
The Russian Commission Visit
During the first week of February, a government commission visited Chernokozovo;
it appeared to consist of military staff, but its exact composition and
agenda remain unclear. (114) The
visitors sought out and found prisoners who had been beaten, even though
many inmates had been temporarily transferred out in advance, took special
interest in those who had visible
signs of injury, and in some cases attempted to document suspected
abuse. However, inmates had been forewarned not complain about abuse and
those who did were later beaten.
"Salman Sulumov" told Human Rights Watch that before the visit, he was held for three days in a train car, and returned to the facility after the commission left:
When I spent four days at Chernokozovo [approximately February 4], we
heard they were expecting some commission. We were [taken] to a train.
After [three days], we were brought
back to Chernokozovo.... They kept us in the cell one day, then loaded
us on the vehicles again where we spent a whole day. Maybe they were hiding
us from another commission. Then,
we were returned back to the cell. (115)
"Bislan Magomadov," who was present at Chernokozovo for the "commission" visit, emphasized that guards had threatened inmates not to speak candidly about their treatment:
They prepared the cells before the commission came, they made some cots.
I don't know what the commission was, but they came from Moscow. They asked
how we were fed, whether
we go through beatings, what our life was like. But we couldn't complain
and could not tell the truth. The guards had told us, "if you complain,
we will punish you." We heard that the
commission arrived and the same day we were warned that we couldn't
complain. (116)
A man who identified himself as the chief of the prison and who accompanied
the visitors had been tipped off that an inmate in cell 17, "Aslan Aslanov,"
had been beaten. While in cell
17, this man examined "Aslanov" and upon the latter's suggestion, examined
"Movsar Larsanov" as well. "Larsanov" told Human Rights Watch:
When they examined ["Aslanov"] they saw traces of beatings...At this
time, [the Russian leading the delegation] said, "I am the chief of this
prison." He made me take off my clothes from
the waist up, and asked me if I had been beaten. I said no. But he
said, "I am not new to this." He didn't say anything to the guards. (117)
Another detainee, "Ali Baigiraev," had been brutally beaten two days
prior to the commission visit. Yet when the commission examined him, at
first he denied that he had been beaten,
fearing reprisals should he tell the truth:
I first said I just fell down, but then they took us to a private room
and made an investigation. They made us tell them about the beatings....
All those who went through severe beatings
had to sign a statement [documenting the beatings]. But I think it
was just a formality, those responsible will not be punished. (118)
"Baigiraev's" cellmate was brutally beaten in reprisal for telling the
commission the cause of his injuries. The commission had examined the young
man, who was from the village of
Ishcherskaia, because he was visibly bruised. "Umar Khakimov," another
cellmate, told Human Rights Watch, "When the commission came he complained.
He was bruised, and that is
why they questioned him. He was questioned by a general, and the general
ordered all those on duty when he was beaten to come and he yelled at them,
saying, 'Do you think you will
remain unpunished?'" (119)
"Ali Baigiraev" confirmed this account:
After the commission left, the soldiers learned that [the man from Ishcherskaia]
complained and took him out and beat him again. They wanted him to sign
a paper with the same
confession because the previous one was taken away by the prosecutor.
They beat him twice that night. (120)
On February 10, the personnel staffing Chernokozovo were rotated out
and Major General Mikhail S. Nazarkin of the Penal Enforcement Department
became director of the facility. (121)
Most interviewees told Human Rights Watch that abuses lessened after
February 10.
International Outrage and Russian Denial
Just before the change in command, details about conditions and unspeakable
abuse in the center were leaked to journalists in Ingushetia, allegedly
by a guard who had served in
Chernokozovo. (122) The second week of February, the guard's letter
"to the world" appeared in Ingushetia, dated February 3, which described
the beating of Radio Liberty
correspondent Andrei Babitsky as well as the torture and rape of other
detainees. (123) Around the same time, released detainees began making
their way to Ingushetia, and confirmed
the extent of the torture. (124)
An international scandal brewed, to which Russian authorities later
responded with a chorus of denial. On February 14, presidential press secretary
Sergei Yasterzhembsky refuted claims
of torture in Chernokozovo; four days later he told reporters that
they were "misinforming the public" by reporting the abuses. (125) The
Ministry of Justice issued a press release stating
that "cases of violence, harassment, torture, and even shootings of
persons kept in the investigation ward located in the residential area
of Chernokozovo…do not correspond to the [sic]
reality and grossly distort the real state of affairs." (126) On March
1, after Andrei Babitsky had been released and made public the treatment
to which he was subjected, Minister of
Internal Affairs Vladimir Rushailo responded with snide skepticism.
"All of [Babitsky's] stories about 250 blows with a baton--I seriously
doubt them, as I think we all do." (127)
Meanwhile, the facility underwent further renovation--it was painted,
improvements were made in the food rations, and detainees were transferred
to other locations to relieve the severe
overcrowding in anticipation of expected international delegations.
For example, on February 22, "Movsar Larsanov," was transferred to the
Chervlyonnaia railway station, where he
spent seven days in prisoner transport train carriages, known as "Stolypin
Carriages." (128)
They took twenty-four of us by [prisoner transport vehicles], they took
us in the morning, that was on the February 22, because on February 21,
at night, we were shaved, they made
a prozharka [i.e. their clothes were sterilized]. In Chervlyonnaia,
there were other people there when we arrived. We were in carriages. (129)
Seven days later, "Movsar Larsanov" was returned to Chernokozovo, whereupon
other detainees told him that in his absence, another commission had visited
Chernokozovo. This
commission, most likely the European Committee for the Prevention of
Torture (CPT), was comprised of international experts as well as Russians.
In a separate investigation of the cover-up in advance of the CPT visit,
Amnesty International also established that "on 25 or 26 February, just
a few days before the CPT official visit to
Chernokozovo, the Russian authorities reportedly removed about 300
men and women detainees--almost the entire population of Chernokozovo--from
the camp to another location in the
village of Stanitsa Chervlyonnaya in Chechnya. It is believed that
the 300 detainees were removed from the camp by the authorities to hide
the real scale of atrocities committed in
Chernokozovo." (130)
The CPT was granted permission to visit Chernokozovo during its February
26-March 3 trip to the North Caucasus. In preliminary observations, it
expressed satisfaction that at the time
of its visit "persons detained in this establishment are not being
physically ill-treated." (131) However, the delegation also stated that
"many persons detained at Chernokozovo were
physically ill-treated in the establishment during the period December
1999 to early February 2000," and described the same methods detailed in
this report. The statement explicitly
requested an investigation by Russian authorities. (132) If the Russian
authorities have initiated such an investigation, its results have not
been made public.
Russian authorities finally allowed a group of foreign journalists access
to Chernokozovo on February 29. The journalists were allowed to talk to
a few selected inmates, who denied they had been abused.
One of them was "Movsar Larsanov," who later told Human Rights Watch
that he had not told the journalists about his transfer to Chervlyonnaya,
nor the full extent of the abuses in Chernokozovo, out of
fear of retribution from the guards. (133)
Nevertheless, it quickly became clear to the journalists visiting the
facility that they were witnessing a cover-up. According to one journalist,
who kept away from the guards, the inmates
confirmed that the camp "had been transformed in the space of a week
in preparation for the arrival of foreign visitors." One detainee muttered
to the journalists, "Before that it was like a
horror film in here. Everything you hear about this camp is true. They
beat people terribly." (134)
On February 17, 2000, then-acting president Vladimir Putin appointed
Vladimir Kalamanov as special representative for human rights in Chechnya,
amidst the uproar over Chernokozovo
as well as international humanitarian law violations in Chechnya. In
the wake of visits by the CPT and foreign journalists, and less than two
weeks into his job, Kalamanov claimed that
there had been no torture in Chernokozovo; he continued to categorically
deny the allegations on other occasions. (135) To his credit, by July Kalamanov's
mission in Znamenskoye had
helped to secure the release and amnesty of more than 200 inmates at
Chernokozovo and other detention centers. (136)
ABUSES AND TORTURE IN OTHER PLACES OF DETENTION
Other detention facilities for Chechen detainees have included remand
prisons in Russia proper; makeshift facilities at a dormitory and a factory
in Chechnya; and ad-hoc holding
facilities--earthen pits or metal storage containers--on Russian military
bases in Chechnya and in Russia proper. Detainees were frequently transferred
among facilities, and many Human
Rights Watch interviewees who provided testimony about Chernokozovo
also described other facilities to which they were transferred. Identifying
the legal status of the latter detention
locations is difficult, while the legal grounds for arrests have never
been established. Most detainees were not told the status of any charges
against them during their detention, nor
were most given any written acknowledgment of their detention upon
their release. (137)
Stavropol territory
Five Chernokozovo detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch were eventually
transferred to remand prisons in the cities of Stavropol or Pyatigorsk,
both in the Stavropol province
of the Russian Federation.
Former inmates at the Pyatigorsk facility, nicknamed "Belyi Lebed"--"White
Swan"-- said that, like at Chernokozovo, upon arrival they were met by
a gauntlet of soldiers who beat them.
The facility is most likely SIZO No.2. "Issa Habuliev" described his
arrival on February 18 from Chernokozovo:
We were taken during the day [from Chernokozovo] and by the evening
we were there. There was a corridor, on two sides there were soldiers the
whole way, we were beaten from each
side, with batons.... There were twenty-four [detainees] with me, including
three women. (138)
None of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch were interrogated in Pyatigorsk, and none said that they were beaten after the initial "welcome gauntlet."
On February 22, many of the former Chernokozovo inmates were transferred
from Pyatigorsk to the Stavropol Central Prison, apparently in preparation
for a commission visit to "Belyi
Lebed." Issa Habuliev told Human Rights Watch: "When the commission
was going to come, all the prisoners were mixed together. Of the twenty-four
who had been with me [when
brought to Pyatigorsk], five wounded and one woman were kept behind,
the others were taken to Stavropol." (139) In Stavropol, the detainees
were again beaten, gauntlet-style, when
they arrived, and throughout the intake process. As in Pyatigorsk,
after this process they were not beaten. "Magomed Kantiev" sarcastically
described the welcome at the Stavropol
prison: "They accepted us very warmly. As a result, I only was able
to get up on the fourth day, and after eleven or twelve days, I could finally
walk again. They beat all of us, it was the
time of the February 23 holidays [Red Army Day, popularly celebrated
as "International Man's Day"] and they were drunk." (140)
During the intake inspection, guards examined detainees' bodies for
bruises and other marks left by handling weapons, and forced the men to
do exercises, beating them during the
process. "Magomed Kantiev" described this to Human Rights Watch:
They made us take off our clothes and checked us completely, all over
the body, very thoroughly. While this was taking place, they made us do...deep-knee
bends, and during these
exercises they beat us with clubs. After these beatings, we were led
to the bathroom, in groups of three or four. We went down a hall on the
first floor and up to the second floor, and
there again there was a "live corridor" [gauntlet] which led to the
bathroom. (141)
"Aslanbek Digaev" and "Issa Habuliev," who also said that they were
severely beaten when they were admitted to Stavropol, reported that the
worst beatings took place in the
bathroom, where they were again forced to do deep-knee bends. "Digaev"
gave the following account:
In the bath they took off all our clothes and said they had to warm
them [to have them sterilized]. We gave them our clothes.... They had some
rubber clubs, new ones. If you got a blow,
it stuck to your body, you couldn't see the effect immediately, only
after the second or third day, then there were black stripes. At this time
we were beaten very violently, until death's
door. (142)
"Magomed Kantiev" confirmed this:
There were seven or eight men standing and they had clubs, some in both
hands, and we were beaten so badly there that we eventually all fell to
the ground.…We had our arms around
each others' shoulders, and they made us continue [doing the knee bend
exercises] until we fell. As soon as you stopped, the guards beat us with
clubs, on our bare skin. Those who
couldn't stand, there was one who fell, they dragged him aside and
beat him again. At the end, all of us were laying there, exhausted. All
eighty or ninety of us had to do this, for them it
made no difference if you were weak or strong, and so when it finally
came time to go into the bath, no one could walk, we all had to crawl.
And during this time they beat us, until all
eighty or ninety had gone