Governments Prohibit It by Law, But Facilitate It in Practice: Report on Torture in FSU

Amnesty International has accused governments around the world of betraying their commitments to stamp out torture, three decades after the ground-breaking Convention Against Torture was adopted by the UN in 1984.

“Governments around the world are two-faced on torture — prohibiting it in law, but facilitating it in practice […] As more governments seek to justify torture in the name of national security, the steady progress made in this field over the last thirty years is being eroded,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

Amnesty International’s latest global campaign, Stop Torture, launched on May 13 with a new media briefing, Torture in 2014: 30 Years of Broken Promises, which provides an overview of the use of torture in the world today.

The section on Europe and Central Asia states that torture and ill-treatment remain widespread throughout the countries of the former Soviet Union. 

"The formal introduction of a raft of protections against torture over the last 20 years has done little to eradicate it in practice. While its use is particularly routine in respect of suspected members of separatist or Islamist groups, it remains a pervasive feature of ordinary law enforcement, as corrupt and under-resourced police forces continue to find forced confessions the easiest route to the convictions expected from them and extortion a useful source of supplementary income. 

[…]

"The introduction of many of the most important formal safeguards against torture has done little to change entrenched law enforcement cultures in countries of the former Soviet Union. Many police forces still assess their performance in terms of clear up rates and convictions achieved. Confessions extracted under torture are often the quickest route to this goal. 

"Torture methods documented by Amnesty International range from beatings, suspension from ceiling hooks, asphyxiation with plastic bags, to electrocution, inserting needles under finger or toenails, dousing with freezing water and even rape," reads the report, in part.