Tetiana Podvorniak, Communications Manager of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, took part in the second section of the OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting “Documenting Cases of Torture during Armed Conflict” on Tuesday, April 26.
During her speech, the manager spoke about the documented cases of torture. According to her, cases of torture were recorded at least against 24 people.
In addition, Podvorniak emphasized that the occupiers ignore all complaints of political prisoners, including health ones. As a result of such occupiers’ carelessness, two deaths have already been recorded in the colonies of the Russian Federation.
Full speech:
After the occupation of Crimea, the Russian Federation launched a large-scale repression against Crimean Tatars and pro-Ukrainian activists on the peninsula. Detentions, arrests, kidnappings, and murders have become regular practices on the peninsula. Unfortunately, torture and ill-treatment of political prisoners in Crimea is quite common.
It is crucial to systematically monitor these violations in order to have all the evidence to bring all the perpetrators to justice in the future.
Thus, the Crimean Tatar Resource Center has been systematically monitoring and analyzing human rights violations in the occupied Crimea since the beginning of the occupation. Experts regularly prepare analytical materials and present them to the Ukrainian and international community. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, we have expanded our activities and started monitoring human rights violations in the newly occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, during the occupation of Crimea, 285 political prisoners were recorded, 194 were representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people. We also received information about 60 people who died, 28 of whom were the representatives of the Crimean Tatar people, and we registered 21 victims of enforced disappearances, 15 of whom were the representatives of the Crimean Tatar people.
According to the CTRC, tortures were applied to at least 24 people.
The occupiers simulated shooting, electrocuted, beat, suffocated with bags, put bags on their heads, and there was even a recorded case of murder.
Along with torture, cases of brutal treatment of political prisoners during detention, in pretrial detention centers and colonies are systematically recorded. Political prisoners are systematically placed in punishment cells and special blocks, where the conditions of detention are much worse. The complaints of political prisoners about the conditions of detention, the violation of their rights, in particular, the failure to provide proper medical care, are systematically ignored.
Thus, two illegally convicted political prisoners, citizens of Ukraine, died in Russian prisons in 2023: Kostiantyn Shyrinh and Dzhemil Hafarov.
Unfortunately, these cases do not stop the occupiers.
Currently, according to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, there are 7 elderly political prisoners of Crimea and 5 disabled people in pre-trial detention centers and colonies. These people are seriously ill and have disabilities.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center strongly condemns such actions of the Russian Federation and asks the world to increase pressure on the occupying state in order to preserve the lives of the Crimean Tatars and the pro-Ukrainian population of the peninsula.
Participation in the event was supported by the International Renaissance Foundation.