俄罗斯2015年度人权报告-美国国务院2016年4月13日发布
RUSSIA 2015 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Russian Federation has a highly centralized, authoritarian political system dominated by President Vladimir Putin. The bicameral Federal Assembly consists of a directly elected lower house (State Duma) and an appointed upper house (Federation Council), both of which lacked independence from the executive branch. The State Duma elections in 2011, the presidential election in 2012, and the regional elections during the year were marked by accusations of government interference and manipulation of the electoral process. Security forces generally reported to civilian authorities, although in some areas of the North Caucasus, especially Chechnya, civilian authorities did not maintain effective control over the security forces.
During the year the occupation and purported “annexation” of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 continued significantly and negatively to affect the human rights situation. The government continued to train, equip, and supply pro-Russian forces in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine, who were joined by numerous fighters from Russia. International monitors and human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) attributed thousands of civilian deaths and injuries, as well as widespread human rights abuses, to combined Russian-separatist forces in the Donbas region and the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea (for details see the Country Reports on Human Rights for Ukraine). Russian law has de facto applied in Ukraine’s Crimea since the occupation and purported “annexation” of the peninsula in March 2014. The government utilized the conflict to stoke nationalism and stifle dissent domestically. On February 27, opposition politician and former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov was shot and killed near the Kremlin. Nemtsov had been preparing a report detailing the country’s involvement in the conflict in Ukraine. Authorities conducted politically motivated arrests, detentions, and trials of Ukrainian citizens in Russia, including the trial of Rada deputy and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe delegate Nadiya Savchenko and the conviction of filmmaker Oleh Sentsov on terrorism charges. Several Ukrainians claimed to have been tortured while in Russian custody, and at year’s end numerous Ukrainian citizens remained in some form of detention in Russia as political prisoners (for details see the Country Reports on Human Rights for Ukraine).
The most significant human rights problems during the year involved:
1. Restrictions on the Ability to Choose One’s Government and Freedoms of Expression, Assembly, Association, and the Media, as well as Internet Freedom: According to the country’s constitution and laws, citizens have the ability to choose their government through the right to vote in free and fair elections; however, authorities restricted this ability. The government increasingly instituted a range of measures to suppress dissent. The government passed new repressive laws and selectively employed existing ones systematically to harass, discredit, prosecute, imprison, detain, fine, and suppress individuals and organizations engaged in activities critical of the government, including NGOs, independent media outlets, bloggers, the political opposition, and activists. Individuals and organizations that professed support for the government of Ukraine or opposed the Russian government’s activities in Ukraine were especially targeted.
2. Political Prosecutions and Administration of Justice: Officials denied due process to defendants in politically motivated cases, including in the prosecutions and appeals of several defendants arrested after the 2012 anti-Putin demonstrations on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow; secret detentions and convictions based on treason and espionage charges; the harsh sentencing and imprisonment of environmental activist Yevgeniy Vitishko; the convictions of non-Russian citizens taken illegally from other countries, especially Ukraine, and brought to Russia for trial; and criminal cases opened against several other political activists and human rights advocates. The government stymied and stigmatized the work of NGOs through the “foreign agents” law and adopted an “undesirable foreign organization” law targeting non-Russian NGOs. Authorities failed to bring to justice the individuals responsible for the deaths of prominent journalists, activists, whistleblowers, and opposition politicians.
3. Government Discrimination against Racial, Ethnic, Religious, and Sexual Minorities: The government continued to discriminate against and selectively prosecute lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons; members of some religious and ethnic minorities; and migrant workers. The government stoked Russian nationalism to implement its policies while stifling dissent. The law banning “propaganda” of nontraditional sexual relations to minors was increasingly used to harass members of the LGBTI community by threatening their jobs, blocking websites, and suppressing activism.
Other problems reported during the year included allegations of torture and excessive force by law enforcement officials that sometimes led to deaths, prison overcrowding as well as substandard and sometimes life-threatening prison conditions, executive branch pressure on the judiciary; electoral irregularities,
extensive official corruption, violence against women, limits on the rights of women (especially in the North Caucasus), trafficking in persons, discrimination against persons with disabilities, social stigmas against persons with HIV/AIDS, and limitations on workers’ rights.
The government failed to take adequate steps to prosecute or punish most officials who committed abuses, resulting in a climate of impunity.
Conflict in the North Caucasus between government forces, insurgents, Islamist militants, and criminal forces led to numerous human rights abuses, including killings, torture, physical abuse, politically motivated abductions, and a general degradation in the rule of law. The government generally did not investigate or prosecute abuses, in particular when regional authorities were responsible. Security forces in the Republic of Chechnya under the direct control of the government of Ramzan Kadyrov acted with impunity, including by issuing threats to Russian federal security forces that attempted to operate in the republic. Chechen authorities also failed to assure the safety of human rights defenders, as demonstrated by the destruction in July of the office of the NGO Committee against Torture in Grozny by a mob.
Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from: a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
There were several reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings. In the North Caucasus, both authorities and local militants carried out numerous extrajudicial killings (see section 1.g.).
On February 27, opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, formerly deputy prime minister during the administration of Boris Yeltsin, was shot and killed on the streets of Moscow near the Kremlin. Police detained several suspects, including Zaur Dadayev, formerly deputy commander of the North battalion of the Interior Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Chechnya. Reports, including in the newspaper Kommersant, indicated that Dadayev might have held a position within the ministry at the time of the killing. Dadayev confessed to the killing before recanting, claiming he had been tortured while in detention. He implied that he had received orders for Nemtsov’s killing from Ruslan Geremeev, another officer who served in the ‘ministry’s North battalion. In November police filed a petition in a district court in Moscow for the arrest in absentia of the alleged organizer of the killing, Ruslan Muhudinov, another former interior ministry officer. Dadayev
remained in detention at year’s end, while the status of Geremeev and Muhudinov was unclear. In December authorities declared Muhudinov to be the “mastermind” of the killing, but Nemtsov’s family maintained that authorities exaggerated Muhudinov’s role in order to hide the political motive for the killing. At the time of his death, Nemtsov was preparing a detailed report on the involvement of Russian soldiers in the conflict in Ukraine (the report, entitled Putin. War, was made public in May after being completed by Nemtsov’s associates).
Prison officials and police subjected inmates and suspects in custody to physical abuse that in some instances resulted in death (see section 1.c., Prison and Detention Center Conditions). On September 4, police arrested musician Sergey Pestov while he was rehearsing with friends in his garage in the town of Dubna in the Moscow oblast. After being handcuffed and taken to the local police station, he fell into a coma and died on the way to the hospital the next morning. According to witnesses, police officers had struck his head several times, causing him to bleed from the nose. In October the Investigative Committee in the Moscow oblast was assigned to investigate Pestov’s death. According to the local NGO, the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, witness accounts and other evidence proved the police had tortured Pestov.
Physical abuse leading to death continued to be a problem in the armed forces. On July 2 in the Chelyabinsk oblast, a senior officer surnamed Zainutdinov beat Denis Ovodov, 19-year-old conscript, with an iron flask for refusing an order to clean up. Ovodov later died from his injuries. Investigators charged Zainutdinov with exceeding authority with the use of violence.
b. Disappearance
Enforced disappearances for both political and financial reasons continued in the North Caucasus (see section 1.g.). According to the 2015 report of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, there were 476 outstanding cases of enforced or involuntary disappearances in the country. Security forces were allegedly responsible for the kidnapping and disappearance of asylum seekers from Central Asia, particularly Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (see section 2.d.).
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
Although the constitution prohibits such practices, numerous credible reports indicated that law enforcement personnel engaged in torture, abuse, and violence to coerce confessions from suspects, and authorities generally did not hold officials accountable for such actions. If law enforcement officials were prosecuted, they were typically charged with simple assault or exceeding their authority. According to human rights activists, judges often elected to rule that these were cases of abuse of power rather than torture. The constitution’s definition of torture implies a private crime between two or more individuals of similar rank, meaning an act of abuse committed by one private citizen against another. Courts often elected instead to utilize laws against abuse of power, because this definition, according to legal statutes, better captures the difference in authority between an officer of the law and the private individual receiving the abuse.
There were reports of deaths as a result of torture (see section 1.a.).
Physical abuse of suspects by police officers was reportedly systemic and usually occurred within the first few days of arrest. Reports from human rights groups and former police officers indicated that police most often used electric shocks, suffocation, and stretching or applying pressure to joints and ligaments, because those methods were considered less likely to leave visible marks. In the North Caucasus, local law enforcement organizations as well as federal security services reportedly committed torture (see section 1.g.).
On January 21, police summoned a woman to a station in the Moscow suburb of Mytishchi for questioning. When she refused to confess to the theft of which she was suspected, detectives placed a bag over her head and administered shocks with an electric Taser to compel an admission of guilt. A forensic examination revealed she was shocked at least 35 times. The Investigative Committee later announced that authorities detained two detectives in the case and charged them with exceeding authority with the use of violence and special methods.
Authorities reportedly physically abused foreigners taken into custody. In May 2014 authorities detained Ukrainian law student Yuriy Yatsenko in the town of Oboyan after he attempted to check into a hotel while on a business trip. Federal Security Service agents presented him with photographs documenting his alleged participation in the Maidan protests in Ukraine and told him to confess to intending to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia on behalf of the Ukrainian ultranationalist organization Right Sector. After he refused, authorities detained Yatsenko for almost a year and allegedly repeatedly tortured him in Kursk Oblast. According to Yatsenko’s account, authorities beat him with a bag over his head while suspended
from a tree, deprived him of food and sleep, and threatened him with injections. Authorities finally allowed Yatsenko to see a lawyer after he cut himself and threatened to commit suicide. Authorities subsequently released Yatsenko in May. Authorities reportedly tortured defendants and witnesses involved in high-profile trials. In the case of the killing of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, suspect Zaur Dadayev confessed to the killing but later stated he had done so under duress. Andrey Babushkin, a member of the Public Monitoring Commission and Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, stated there was evidence of torture on the bodies of Dadayev and another suspect. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation threatened criminal charges against Babushkin for his statements.
Court decisions related to police torture continued to come from the Republic of Tatarstan. On February 4, the Supreme Court of Tatarstan upheld the sentences of eight officers convicted following the 2012 death of Tatarstan resident Sergey Nazarov, who was severely beaten and raped at the Dal’niy police station. Courts also sentenced Tatarstan police officers in more recent cases of alleged torture of detainees. In July the Aktanysh District Court sentenced Major Rustam Gabdrashitov to three years’ imprisonment, and Captain Radik Gabdrashitov and Senior Lieutenant Ramil Sadrtdinov to three-year suspended sentences for the unlawful use of physical force. In September 2014 the officers attempted to force a confession from a 24-year-old man taken to the Aktanysh police station for questioning. The officers allegedly kicked, punched, and stood on the victim’s head. In addition to the court’s sentence, authorities disciplined the police chief and four of his subordinates.
Police, as well as individuals operating with the tacit approval of authorities, conducted attacks on political and human rights activists, critics of government policies, and persons linked to the opposition. On February 4, a group of men attacked defense lawyer Murad Magomedov outside the Supreme Court of Dagestan during a trial in which he had been defending Akhmed Israpilov on terrorism charges. Magomedov suffered a broken jaw and head injuries. Human Rights Watch reported that the brazenness of the assault indicated the assailants likely acted with the acquiescence of authorities. Magomedov had also worked with Memorial Human Rights Center’s Dagestan office to defend the rights of residents of Vremennyy who had been forced from their homes due to a counterterrorism operation. No information was available regarding any investigation into the identity of the attackers.
On December 11, journalist, politician, and public figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, Jr. submitted a request to the Investigative Committee to open a criminal investigation into what he characterized as an attempt to kill him by poisoning, alleging the attempt on his life was motivated by political and ideological hatred. Kara-Murza was hospitalized on May 26 after suffering from an unknown illness and spent more than a month in a Moscow hospital before his condition stabilized sufficiently for him to travel abroad to seek further treatment. In his complaint Kara-Murza provided test results conducted by a foreign clinical center.
Reports by refugees, NGOs, and the press suggested a pattern of police carrying out beatings, arrests, and extortion of persons whose ethnic makeup was assumed to be Romani, Central Asian, African, or of a Caucasus nationality.
There were multiple reports of authorities’ detaining defendants for psychiatric evaluations for up to 30 days as a means of pressuring them. According to the Russian Legal Information Agency, a court ruling in March moved the leader of the nationalist organization Russians, Aleksandr Potkin (also known as Aleksandr Belov), from a pretrial detention facility to a mental hospital. Police arrested Potkin in October 2014 in Moscow on suspicion of embezzlement of five billion dollars from BTA Bank. Potkin’s lawyers claimed the authorities were prosecuting him for political reasons. In September authorities charged Potkin with inciting hatred or enmity, creating an extremist organization, encouraging extremism, and money laundering.
Nonlethal physical abuse and hazing continued to be a problem in the armed forces, although the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported in February that the number of violations related to hazing in the armed forces decreased by 16 percent in 2014. The NGO Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers confirmed the decrease of incidents of “dedovshchina” (a pattern of hazing), noting that the organization received such complaints at a rate of less than 400 per year.
In March the St. Petersburg City Court found that military commissioners violated recruits’ rights by not taking into account their medical files. This caused recruits who were medically unfit for duty to enter into the army. Of the more than 20,000 complaints the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers received annually, approximately 80 percent were from conscripts who were drafted into service despite claiming poor health.
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
Conditions in prisons and detention centers varied but were sometimes harsh and life threatening. Overcrowding, abuse by guards and inmates, limited access to health care, food shortages, and inadequate sanitation were common in prisons, penal colonies, and other detention facilities.
Physical Conditions: Authorities held prisoners and detainees in five types of facilities: temporary police detention centers, pretrial detention facilities (SIZO), correctional labor colonies (ITKs), prisons for those who violate ITK rules, and educational labor colonies for juveniles. Unofficial prisons, many of which were located in the North Caucasus district, reportedly continued to operate.
Prison overcrowding remained a serious problem despite the granting of amnesty to nearly 100,000 prisoners in May. Although the federal minimum standard of space per person in detention is 43 square feet, Presidential Human Rights Council member Andrey Babushkin reported in October that inmates were being confined to spaces far below the mandatory minimum, particularly in prison facilities in larger cities. The size of the country’s prison population exacerbated the problem, with the capacity rates at 95 percent, up from 90 percent in 2013.
Penal Reform International reported conditions were generally better in women’s colonies than in men’s but remained substandard. Thirteen women’s facilities also contained facilities for underage children of inmates who had no options for housing them with friends or relatives.
According to a September 8 statement by the Federal Penitentiary Service, a total of 2,640 inmates died during the year.
On July 4, a 26-year-old Kyrgyz inmate, Akbarali Akbaraliyev, died after prison authorities reportedly beat him while he was in solitary detention for 15 days at Penitentiary Facility #46 in Nevyansk, Sverdlovsk oblast. Akbaraliyev’s death led to a protest in which hundreds of inmates went on a hunger strike. Authorities filed charges of intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm resulting in death and exceeding authority with the use of violence against Warden Il’ya Chikin and other officials at the facility.
On November 25, Vitaliy Pop, a 16-year-old Ukrainian citizen, died after authorities at the Belorechensk penal colony beat him severely. Pop, who was serving a five-year sentence for a store robbery despite being a minor with no previous criminal record, had reportedly told his parents that newcomers to the
penal colony were routinely abused. During the beating prison staff reportedly called Pop names considered derogatory to Ukrainians.
During the year 197 persons died in police stations, pretrial detention, or temporary detention, according to a tally maintained by the website Russian Ebola. Causes of death included medical conditions, suicide, and injuries sustained while in detention. In August a total of six detainees died in police stations, five in temporary detention centers, four in investigative detention, and one in a police vehicle. Of these 16 deaths, authorities attributed four to “sudden deterioration of health,” four to a fire in a detention center, three to suicide, two to heart attacks, and one as alcohol-related. Injuries reportedly sustained while in detention caused the remaining two fatalities.
Police detained Tajik migrant Zarina Yunusova and her five-month-old son Umarali Nazarov in St. Petersburg on October 13. Nazarov died on October 14 after authorities had separated him from his mother. Police claimed the boy died of a respiratory infection and continued with deportation proceedings against Yunusova. The St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office reported in November that the detention facility where they had been held was unsuitable for living and opened a criminal investigation on charges of death by negligence. Nazarov’s parents were also under investigation for failing in their parental duties.
In the case of Sergey Magnitskiy, a lawyer who died of medical neglect and abuse while in pretrial detention in 2009, authorities did not as of year’s end bring those responsible for his death to justice. The investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death remained officially closed.
There were reports that prison staff abused prisoners. In May scores of prisoners cut their forearms and refused medical attention to protest physical abuse by prison staff at a penal colony in the Amur Oblast.
Prisoner-on-prisoner violence was also a problem. In some cases prison authorities encouraged prisoners to abuse certain inmates. In February, four prisoners killed fellow inmate Aleksey Shangina in a Moscow detention facility, and one of the suspects stated that the attack was carried out under the instructions of a police officer. There were elaborate inmate-enforced caste systems in which certain groups, including informers, gay inmates, rapists, prison rape victims, and child molesters, were considered “untouchables” (the lowest caste). Prison authorities provided little or no protection to these groups.
Health, nutrition, ventilation, and sanitation standards varied between facilities but generally were poor. Potable water sometimes was rationed. Access to quality medical care remained a significant problem in the penal system. For example, Chelyabinsk prisoner Vladimir Kondrulin died in August of prostate cancer in a prison facility for tuberculosis treatment, despite prior warnings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that he would likely die if not immediately moved to a facility where he could receive appropriate medical attention. The Chelyabinsk District Court and Chelyabinsk Oblast Court refused to approve his transfer.
Tuberculosis and HIV among the country’s prison population continued to be significant problems. The Federal Penitentiary Services reported that nearly 4 percent of the country’s prison population was infected with tuberculosis, while the HIV rate among prisoners increased 6 percent compared with 2014. Although all correctional facilities had medical units or health centers, only 41 treatment facilities provided treatment for tuberculosis patients, down from 58 in 2014, and only nine prisons provided medical services for drug addiction. In January 2014 the Leningrad Oblast prosecutor’s office released an audit of the region’s prison health-care facilities that indicated numerous violations of statutory standards of care for HIV-infected and tuberculosis patients in diagnosis and treatment as well as standards for evaluating test results.
On May 6, a riot broke out in a facility in Nizhny Novgorod for prisoners with tuberculosis, leaving one dead and more than 20 injured. The riot reportedly was sparked by inhuman conditions for sick prisoners, including being forced to work up to 12 hours per day.
In a 2012 pilot judgment in the case of Ananyev v. Russia, the ECHR noted that inadequate conditions of detention were a recurrent and systemic problem in the country and ordered the government to draft a binding implementation plan to remedy the situation. In 2012 the government submitted an action plan for implementing the court’s ruling. Since the action plan was released, however, there were no significant indications of progress. Prison conditions remained poor, as evidenced by the 30 ECHR judgments against the country in 2014 for inhuman and degrading prison conditions.
According to the Ministry of Justice, in 2014 the government paid 58 million rubles ($890,000) in compensatory damages for substandard conditions of detention in SIZOs, a more than twofold increase from 2013. The average amount of compensation was approximately 20,000 rubles ($308).
Administration: Prisoners had visitation rights, but authorities could deny access to visitors depending on the circumstances. Authorities allowed prisoners serving a regular sentence four three-day visits with their spouses per year. On occasion prison officials cancelled visits if the prison did not have enough space to accommodate them. The judge or investigator in a prisoner’s case could deny the prisoner visitation rights. Authorities could also prohibit relatives deemed a security risk from visiting prisoners. The number of visitors was limited, usually to two adults and two children on each visit.
While prisoners could file complaints with public oversight commissions or with the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office, they were often afraid of reprisal. Prison reform activists reported that only prisoners who believed they had no other option risked the consequences of filing a complaint. Complaints that reached the oversight commissions often focused on minor personal requests.
There were no completely independent bodies to investigate credible allegations of inhuman conditions. In November 2014 new members were added to public oversight commissions, but appointment and selection procedures prevented many human rights defenders from participating, decreasing the effectiveness of oversight commission observation in many regions. At the same time, authorities increased appointments of former military, police, and prison officials to oversight commissions, effectively placing them under the control of law enforcement agencies. According to activists and media reports, the independence of the oversight commissions varied by region. Vedomosti newspaper reported that, after the selection of new members for the Moscow public oversight commission in 2013, the majority of commission members were former officers of the security services and former prison officials, rather than human rights activists who had historically made up the majority of commission members.
Independent Monitoring: There were no prison ombudsmen. The law regulating public oversight of detention centers allows public oversight commission representatives to visit facilities. According to the Russian Public Chamber, there were a total of 1,144 public oversight commissions spread over 81 regions. By law there should be five to 40 members on each commission. Authorities permitted only the oversight commissions to visit prisons regularly to monitor conditions. There were reports, however, that prison officials, citing disease or danger, denied access to inspectors upon arrival. According to the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, public oversight commissions were legally entitled to have access to all prison and detention facilities, including psychiatric facilities, but prison
authorities often prevented them from accessing these facilities. The law does not establish procedures for local authorities to respond to oversight commission findings or recommendations, which are not legally binding.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
While the law prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention, authorities engaged in arbitrary arrest and detention with impunity.
Role of the Police and Security Apparatus
The Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Investigative Committee, and the Office of the Prosecutor General are responsible for law enforcement at all levels of government. The FSB is responsible for security, counterintelligence, and counterterrorism as well as for fighting organized crime and corruption. The national police force under the Ministry of Internal Affairs is organized into federal, regional, and local levels.
Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees
By law authorities may arrest and hold a suspect for up to 48 hours without court approval, provided there is evidence of the crime or a witness; otherwise, an arrest warrant is required. After arrest, police typically take detainees to the nearest police station, where they inform them of their rights. Police must prepare a protocol stating the grounds for the arrest, and both detainee and police officer must sign it within three hours of detention. Police must interrogate detainees within the first 24 hours of detention. Prior to interrogation a detainee has the right to meet with an attorney for two hours. No later than 12 hours after detention, police must notify the prosecutor. They must also notify the detainee’s relatives unless a prosecutor issues a warrant to keep the detention secret. Police are required to release a detainee after 48 hours, subject to bail conditions, unless a court decides, at a hearing, to prolong custody in response to a motion filed by police not less than eight hours before the 48-hour detention period expires. The defendant and his or her attorney must be present at the court hearing.
By law police must complete their investigation and transfer a case to a prosecutor for arraignment within two months of a suspect’s arrest, although an investigative authority may extend a criminal investigation for up to 12 months. Extensions beyond 12 months need the approval of the head federal investigative authority in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Drug Control Service, the FSB, or
Investigative Committee. According to some defense lawyers, these time limits often were exceeded, especially in cases with a high degree of public interest. There were a number of problems relating to defendants’ ability to obtain adequate defense counsel. Federal law provides defendants the right to choose their own lawyers, but investigators generally did not respect this provision, instead designating lawyers friendly to the prosecution. These “pocket” defense attorneys agreed to the interrogation of their clients in their presence while making no effort to defend their clients’ legal rights. In many cases, especially in more remote regions, defense counsel was not available for indigent defendants. Judges usually did not suppress confessions of suspects taken without a lawyer present. Judges at times freed suspects held in excess of detention limits, although they usually granted prosecutors’ motions to extend detention periods.
Authorities generally respected the legal limitations on detention except in the North Caucasus. There were reports of occasional noncompliance with the 48-hour limit for holding a detainee. At times authorities failed to issue an official detention protocol within the required three hours after detention and held suspects longer than the legal detention limits. The practice was widespread in the North Caucasus (see section 1.g.) and unevenly applied.
Caucasian Knot, an independent online news site, reported that on August 26, law enforcement officials in Dagestan detained Akhmed Akhmedov on suspicion of attacking a police officer. Akhmedov’s wife submitted a complaint to the human rights NGO Memorial Human Rights Center, noting that she had not been informed of her husband’s whereabouts since his detention. At year’s end there was no information regarding his whereabouts.
Arbitrary Arrest: There were many reports of arbitrary arrest. Following prayers at a mosque in Dagestan on May 8, police detained 10 to 15 men leaving the building when they refused to give their names and addresses. Witnesses told Caucasian Knot that the men were held until late evening before being released. None of the men was charged with a crime.
Pretrial Detention: According to statistics released by the Supreme Court, domestic courts, relying on the arguments of the prosecution, granted more than 90 percent of applications for detention orders and nearly 100 percent of requests to extend the duration of detention orders.
Protracted Detention of Rejected Asylum Seekers or Stateless Persons: Authorities continued to detain asylum seekers while their cases were pending as well as all rejected asylum seekers prior to deportation or pending judicial review (see section 2.d.). Human rights NGOs reported authorities used protracted detention in such cases, including detention past the legal limit of 18 months.
Amnesty: Under an amnesty program from President Putin in honor of the 70th anniversary of (World War II) Victory Day in May, nearly 100,000 nonviolent criminals were released from penal colonies and detention centers, according to Valeriy Maksimenko, acting head of the Federal Penitentiary Service.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The law provides for an independent judiciary, but judges remained subject to influence from the executive branch, the armed forces, and other security forces, particularly in high-profile or politically sensitive cases. The law requires judicial approval of arrest warrants, searches, seizures, and detentions. Officials generally honored this requirement, although bribery or political pressure sometimes subverted the process of obtaining judicial warrants. The outcomes of some trials appeared predetermined (see section 1.e., Political Prisoners and Detainees).
The human rights ombudsman received 59,100 complaints in 2014, a 43 percent increase compared with 2013. The largest number of complaints (32 percent) was submitted for violations of criminal proceedings and violations during trials. Judges routinely received calls from superiors instructing them how to rule in specific cases. In 2013 the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights reported, “In practice [judges] do not possess genuine, as opposed to declaratory, independence. The powers of a judge who does not agree to carry out the requests may be prematurely terminated. In such a situation, the conscientious judge is subject to pressure from within the judicial system and has no chance of defending his or her own rights.”
A 2013 report by the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner on the protection of human rights in the country’s judicial system noted that “perceptions persist that judges were not shielded from undue pressure, including from within the judiciary.”
In many cases authorities reportedly did not provide adequate protection for witnesses and victims from intimidation or threats from powerful criminal defendants.
Trial Procedures
The defendant has a legal presumption of innocence. A judge without a jury typically hears trials (bench trials). The law provides for the use of jury trials for a limited range of crimes in higher-level regional courts. Certain crimes, including terrorism, espionage, hostage taking, and inciting mass disorder, must be heard by panels of three judges rather than by juries. Juries tried approximately 800 to 900 cases each year, or approximately 0.02 percent of all criminal cases. While judges acquitted less than 1 percent of defendants, juries acquitted an estimated 20 percent. Legal experts attributed the decline in the number of jury trials since 2008 to an effort by officials to avoid acquittals in criminal cases.
The law allows prosecutors to appeal acquittals, which they did in most cases. Prosecutors may also appeal what they regard as lenient sentences. Appellate courts reversed approximately 30 percent of acquittals and remanded them for a new trial, although these cases often ended in a second acquittal.
During trial the defense is not required to present evidence and is given an opportunity to cross-examine witnesses and call defense witnesses, although judges may deny the defense this opportunity. Defendants who are in custody during a trial were confined to a caged area, which was replaced by glass enclosures in some courts. Defendants have the right of appeal. Prior to trial defendants receive a copy of their indictment, which describes the charges against them in detail. They also have the opportunity to review their criminal file following the completion of the criminal investigation. The law provides for the appointment of an attorney free of charge if a defendant cannot afford one, although the high cost of competent legal service meant that lower-income defendants often lacked competent representation. There were few qualified defense attorneys in remote areas of the country. Defense attorneys may visit their clients in detention, although defense lawyers claimed authorities electronically monitored their conversations and did not always provide them access to their clients.
Plea bargaining was used to settle approximately 64 percent of criminal cases in 2014, and the law allows a defendant to receive a reduced sentence for testifying against others. Plea bargains reduced defendants’ time in pretrial detention in
approximately 50 percent of cases, reduced the average prison term to no more than half of the otherwise applicable statutory maximum, and allowed courts and prosecutors to devote their resources to other cases.
Political Prisoners and Detainees
There were political prisoners in the country, and authorities detained and prosecuted individuals for political reasons. On October 30, the Memorial Human Rights Center’s updated list of political prisoners included 50 names, an increase from the 46 individuals the organization listed in 2014. Those added to the list during the year included Oleg Navalny (convicted of embezzlement, although the charges were widely regarded as retribution for the political activities of his brother Aleksey); blogger Vadim Tyumentsev (public calls for extremism using the internet and the incitement of hatred or enmity); and Director of the Library of Ukrainian Literature in Moscow Natalia Sharina (inciting ethnic hatred and denigration of human dignity; see section 2.a., Freedom of Speech and Press). In August the Chronicle of Current Events published a list of 217 political prisoners that included opposition politicians, human rights activists, environmental activists, religious believers, and bloggers.
On June 27, the Moscow City Court denied the appeal of opposition activist Aleksey Navalny and his brother Oleg Navalny, who were found guilty of fraud in December 2014 in a case involving the Yves-Rocher company. Aleksey had received a three-and-a-half year suspended sentence, while Oleg continued to serve a three-and-a-half year prison term. Observers regarded both cases as politically motivated. The harassment of Aleksey Navalny continued, since authorities placed him under house arrest in January and detained him multiple times. On February 20, he received a 15-day prison sentence for distributing leaflets publicizing a demonstration.
After the country’s military intervention in and purported “annexation” of Crimea in March 2014, judicial authorities began to transfer court cases to Russia from occupied Crimea for trial. In September 2014 Russian authorities transferred from Crimea to the Krasnodar Kray the son of prominent exiled Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Jemilev, Khaiser Jemilev, whom they arrested in 2013, and charged him with fatally shooting his neighbor, Fevzi Edemova. The Krasnodar Kray Court convicted him of manslaughter and sentenced him to a five-year imprisonment on June 2. Prior to the Russian court’s ruling, a Ukrainian court convicted Jemilev of manslaughter in absentia in May and sentenced him to 44 months in prison. The Ukrainian government demanded his extradition from Russia, noting that
according to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Russian constitution, he cannot be convicted twice for the same crime.
On August 25, the Northern Caucasus Military District Court sentenced Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov to 20 years in a prison camp after convicting him on terrorism charges widely seen as politically motivated. The other defendants in the case, Ukrainian citizens Hennadiy Afanasyev, Oleksiy Chirniy, and Oleksandr Kolchenko, received sentences ranging from seven to 10 years. The men had been detained in May 2014 on suspicion that the group was “plotting terrorist acts” in association with the Right Sector nationalist group. During Sentsov’s trial, Afanasyev retracted his testimony, saying that he had been tortured and coerced into signing a false statement against Sentsov. Human rights activists in the country publicly stated they believed Sentsov’s case was retribution for his opposition to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
The politically motivated trial of Lieutenant Nadiya Savchenko on charges of killing two Russian journalists in Metalist, Ukraine, began in Donetsk, Russia, on September 22. Savchenko, a Ukrainian military pilot and Rada deputy detained by Russian authorities since June 2014, also faced charges of attempted murder and entering Russia illegally. She pleaded not guilty to all the charges. On December 18, Savchenko began a hunger strike after authorities extended her detention into April 2016. Her trial, as well as her hunger strike, continued at the end of the year. Other Ukrainians in Russian detention on politically motivated charges included Valentin Vygovskiy, sentenced in December to 11 years’ imprisonment on espionage charges; Yuriy Soloshenko, sentenced to six years in a penal colony for espionage; Serhii Litvinov, detained for alleged war crimes; and Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh, accused of participating in military activities against Russian armed forces during the war in Chechnya in the 1990s.
There were continued court rulings and arrests related to the 2012 Bolotnaya Square case, initiated in connection with clashes between police and protesters at a demonstration on the eve of President Putin’s inauguration in 2012. Many human rights groups considered the Bolotnaya case to be politically motivated. Dmitry Buchenkov was detained on December 4 for his alleged participation in the protest. In addition, authorities detained Ivan Nepomnyashchikh on February 25 and charged him with assaulting police at a protest in 2012. On December 22, authorities sentenced Nepomnyashchikh to 2.5 years’ imprisonment. On September 17, the ECHR ruled that the state had not brought three Bolotnaya
defendants to trial within a reasonable time and ordered the government to compensate them 2,000 to 3,000 euros ($2,200 to $3,300) each.
On December 22, the Tambov Oblast Court upheld a decision to release on parole Yevgeniy Vitishko, an activist with the Environmental Watch of the North Caucasus, who was convicted in 2013 on politically motivated charges (for damaging the fence of the Krasnodar governor’s dacha) and sentenced to three years in prison. Amnesty International named Vitishko a “prisoner of conscience” and the Memorial Human Rights Center considered him a political prisoner. On November 21, Vitishko undertook a 20-day hunger strike in response to prosecutors’ attempts to block his release following a lower court decision to grant him parole. He served 22 months of the three-year sentence.
There were reports that authorities lodged politically motivated charges of treason and espionage against individuals, often in connection with the conflict in Ukraine. In 2012 the government redefined treason to include providing assistance to a foreign state or international organization directed against the country’s national security. The Moscow City Court reported that from January 2014 to March 3, authorities arrested nine persons on such charges in the capital, while 15 persons were convicted of treason in 2014, nearly four times as many as in the previous year.
On January 21, authorities arrested Svetlana Davydova, a mother of seven, in the Smolensk oblast and charged her with treason. Davydova had called the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow in April 2014 to report that she had overheard that Russian troops would be deploying to Ukraine. After a public outcry, authorities dropped the charges against her in March.
On September 21, the Moscow City Court sentenced Gennadiy Kravtsov, a former intelligence officer, to a 14-year sentence for treason. After Kravtsov left the military intelligence service in 2005, authorities arrested him in May 2014 after he sent a resume to a Swedish firm and accused him of revealing state secrets related to Russian satellites. Kravtsov’s lawyer believed the increased use of the treason law in such cases was part of a broader crackdown on contact between Russians and foreign entities.
Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies
Although the law provides mechanisms for individuals to file lawsuits against authorities for violations of civil rights, these mechanisms often did not work well.
For example, the law provides that a defendant who has been acquitted after a trial has the right to compensation from the government. Human rights activists claimed authorities avoided paying compensation through procedural means, such as leaving cases in pending status. Persons who believed their civil rights had been violated typically sought redress in the ECHR after the domestic courts had ruled against them.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence The law forbids officials from entering a private residence except in cases prescribed by federal law or when authorized by a judicial decision. The law also prohibits government monitoring of correspondence, telephone conversations, and other means of communication without a warrant and prohibits the collection, storage, utilization, and dissemination of information about a person’s private life without his or her consent. There were allegations government officials and others engaged in electronic surveillance without appropriate authorization and entered residences and other premises without warrants.
Law enforcement agencies require telecommunications service providers to grant the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB continuous remote access to client databases, including telephone and electronic communication and records, enabling police to track private communications and monitor internet activity without the provider’s knowledge. The law permits authorities to monitor telephone calls in real time, with a warrant. The Ministry of Information and Communication requires telecommunications service providers to allow the FSB to tap telephones and monitor information over the internet. The Ministry of Information and Communication maintained authorities would not access information without a court order, although the FSB is not required to show it upon request.
A 2014 law that went into effect on September 1 requires that websites maintain user information databases on the territory of the country and provide this information to the security services upon request (see section 2.a.).
Officials often singled out persons with dark complexions from the Caucasus as well as individuals who appeared to be of African or Asian origin for document checks. There were credible reports that police arbitrarily imposed fines on unregistered persons in excess of legal requirements or demanded bribes.
g. Use of Excessive Force and Other Abuses in Internal Conflicts
Violence continued in the North Caucasus republics, driven by separatism, interethnic conflict, jihadist movements, vendettas, criminality, excesses by security forces, and the activity of terrorists. Media reported that as of October 31, the total number of deaths and injuries due to the conflicts in the North Caucasus decreased significantly compared with the same period in 2014 in all republics of the North Caucasus. According to human rights activists in the region, violence in Dagestan and Chechnya continued at a high level. Dagestan continued to be the most violent area in the North Caucasus, with approximately 60 percent of all casualties in the region. Local media described the level of violence in Dagestan as the result of Islamic militant insurgency tactics continuing from the Chechen wars as well as the high level of organized crime in the region.
Killings: Caucasian Knot reported that as of October 31, there were at least 169 deaths and 32 injuries in the North Caucasus as a result of armed conflicts in the region. As of September with 95 deaths from armed conflict, in Dagestan was the most deadly region. Of the deaths in Dagestan, 71 were militants, 14 were civilians, and 10 were law enforcement officers. This represented a significant decrease from the same period in 2014, since the overall number of casualties dropped by almost two-thirds, and by half in Dagestan.
In a change from previous years, no journalists were killed in the North Caucasus during the year (see section 2.a.).
There continued to be reports that use of indiscriminate force by security forces resulted in numerous deaths or disappearances and that authorities did not prosecute the perpetrators. According to Caucasian Knot and human rights groups, on March 21, police in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, sealed off an apartment block and commenced an operation to clear a building of suspected militants. While checking the identification documents of residents, they came across a woman with a child who refused to leave her apartment, leading authorities to presume she was likely a militant. Although the child was eventually able to leave, police killed seven persons in two different apartments in the building, including the woman, after one of the suspects shot and killed a police officer. Police found ammunition in only one apartment, which indicated that the couple killed in the second apartment were not part of the militant group and were caught in the crossfire. Nevertheless, police labeled the couple as “rebels.”
Local militants continued to engage in violent acts against local security forces, often resulting in deaths.