European Committee against Torture reports on abuse of prisoners in Northern Caucasus

Inmates of prisoners of Northern Caucasus claim being abused by law enforcers. This was reported by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (ECPT), which members visited several prisons in Chechnya, Dagestan and North Ossetia in spring of 2011.

According to the ECPT, in particular, the report mentions the cases that "could be considered torture" use of electric current and suffocation in gas masks. The report notes that those cases were mentioned by prisoners from Chechnya and Dagestan.

The ECPT notes that it did not receive any formal complaints about abuse directly from prisoners of Northern Caucasus. "However, some of the prisoners said that the prison administration had warned them about the inadmissibility of filing complaints to representatives of the delegation," the "Interfax" quotes the report as stating.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on this July 8, participants of the visiting session of the Human Rights Council inspected the institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service (known as FSIN) in Chechnya. The human rights defenders have noted the lack of inmates' complaints about the content in the penitentiary institutions.

Meanwhile, Igor Kalyapin, the head of the interregional public organization "Committee against Torture", has noted the existence of complaints from persons under investigation in Grozny about torture forcing to admit their guilt.