Europe urges Ukraine to combat ill-treatment of prisoners

Ukraine must step up its fight against the ill-treatment of prisoners.
This is stated in a report by the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, published on Thursday.
The report was prepared following a visit to Ukraine that took place from 1 to 10 December 2012, reports Interfax-Ukraine.

The Committee, in particular, recommends implementing changes at the highest level and developing an ethical culture among prison staff, improving relations between staff and prisoners (which also includes combating corruption), and strengthening the role of medical staff in preventing ill-treatment.

Furthermore, the Committee recommends defining the limits of the use of force more clearly and improving training in its application, ensuring the effective investigation of cases of potential ill-treatment, in particular through the immediate creation of a national team specialising in investigating such cases, as well as developing an effective national preventive mechanism.

The Committee notes that in their response, the Ukrainian authorities provided information on measures initiated to address some of the urgent issues raised in the report, in particular against torture, and in the area of combating corruption in correctional colonies and other penitentiary institutions.

During last year’s visit, the European mission visited four colonies in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, and Vinnytsia regions. Particular attention was paid to the results of their visit to the Kachanivska colony and the Kharkiv Ukrzaliznytsia hospital, where Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was being held at the time.

The Kachanivska colony appeared to be the most satisfactory of those visited, European experts noted, writes ‘Kommersant-Ukraine’.

However, according to members of the mission, ‘a significant number of interviewed prisoners still remember the screams of Yulia Tymoshenko when she was being moved outside the colony... Yulia Tymoshenko stated in a separate interview that she was beaten by colony staff, mostly in the stomach, and that her hands were bound, as a result of which she screamed in pain.’

‘Serious concerns are raised by allegations received by the mission that potential witnesses were intimidated into withdrawing their testimony supporting Ms Tymoshenko’s version,’ the report says.