29 JANUARY 2022

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IHRDC-CIPDH REPORT. 120-RU-29-22

Certified by: IHRDC-CIPDH Secretariat.

This report is prepared by the IHRDC-CIPDH expert group,  who conducted an investigation, analysis of court cases and a survey of 175 prisoners in Russia.

 

1. REPORT DATE 29 JANUARY 2022		2. REPORT TYPE UNCLASSIFIED		3. DATES COVERED 01-01-2020 to – 12-12-2021
4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE “HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION”				5a. CONTRACT NUMBER
				5b. GRANT NUMBER
				5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER
6. AUTHOR(S). IHRDC-CIPDH.				5d. PROJECT NUMBER
				5e. TASK NUMBER
				5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER
7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENCE COMMISSARIAT. CIPDH. USA. VA.				8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER
9. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES)				10. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S ACRONYM(S)
				11. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S REPORT NUMBER(S)
12. DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENT Approved for public release; distribution unlimited
13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES
14. ABSTRACT Since 2014, a repressive bias in the application of criminal law has become apparent in the legal system of the Russian Federation. Many “custom-made” and “paid” cases have appeared related to the seizure of private property and small businesses from citizens. Raider cases have intensified with the use of “administrative resources” in favor of one of the parties. Torture continues in police and prisons.
15. SUBJECT TERMS
16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF:			17. LIMITATION OF ABSTRACT	18. NUMBER OF PAGES	19a. NAME OF RESPONSIBLE PERSON Maximim Schnaider. Berg. Vladimir.
a. REPORT unclassified	b. ABSTRACT unclassified	c. THIS PAGE unclassified

 

Since 2014, a repressive bias in the application of criminal law has become apparent in the legal system of the Russian Federation. Many “custom-made” and “paid” cases have appeared related to the seizure of private property and small businesses from citizens. Raider cases have intensified with the use of “administrative resources” in favor of one of the parties. Torture continues in police and prisons.

The persecution of international human rights activists and Russian lawyers for various reasons (usually far-fetched or fabricated) by the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB of Russia has become completely “normal”.

Recently, in almost all branches of law, including criminal law, citizens of the Russian Federation have encountered “arbitrariness of the authorities”, which is not possible, due to the corruption of the legal system, to effectively appeal at the national level for various reasons. These violations and open “lawlessness” created a human rights direction in which the citizens of the Russian Federation began to protect their rights in international instances.

Since March 2015, the IHRDC-CIPDH expert group, working in the Russian Federation, has been actively preparing citizens’ appeals to the European Court of Human Rights., advising citizens who have suffered from the arbitrariness of the authorities and organizing educational events for Russian lawyers. In dozens of Chambers of Lawyers in various regions of Russia, the IHRDC-CIPDH expert group, led by Maxim Shnaider, held training seminars and delivered lectures on the preparation of citizens’ appeals to the European Court of Human Rights.

Over many years of work in the Russian human rights system, Maxim Shnaider noted: “… one of the important areas in the protection of human rights is the protection provided by the European Convention for the Protection of Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms under Article 3 of the Convention.”

IHRDC-CIPDH Human rights activists and IHRDC-CIPDH lawyers prepared more than 150 complaints in Russia on violations of Article 3 of the Convention. Particular attention is drawn to inadequate conditions of detention.

This problem has existed in the Russian Federation for a very long time. Unfortunately, this is the pernicious legacy of the USSR, which, due to the totalitarian mentality of the law enforcements structures, has not been resolved. Despite the large number of decisions made by the ECtHR in relation to the Russian Federation, the problem of correctional institutions has not been resolved so far. Currently, IHRDC-CIPDH human rights defenders are preparing complaints in five main areas:

1. for violation of conditions of detention;
2. on the terms of transportation in escort vehicles;
3. conditions of detention in metal cages in courts;
4. on the conditions of transportation in wagons to the place of serving the sentence;
5. refusal to provide medical assistance to the convict.

In the process of working with prisoners in Russian colonies and prisons, it was possible to discover a serious problem of human rights violations – the systematic blocking by the employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia of sending complaints about violations of the convention to the ECHR, which in itself already violates Article 8 of the Convention in accordance with established practice.

During the visits of IHRDC-CIPDH experts of places of deprivation of liberty, it was found everywhere that the employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, taking letters during checks in prisons and colonies, deliberately do not send them to the European Court of Human Rights.. This was found out in the process of communicating with convicts and collecting evidence on 38 complaints. Several such complaints were prepared by IHRDC-CIPDH human rights activist Maxim Shnaider and sent to the European Court of Human Rights.

Also, one of the most urgent and really acute problems in the Russian Federation, in the field of human rights, is the infliction of harm to the health of citizens, detained by police officers.

Thus, in the case “Mamedov v. RF”, which IHRDC-CIPDH human rights activists sent to the European Court of Human Rights, the police beat the detainee, but the prosecutor’s office did not conduct a proper investigation into this fact. In the case “Kapitsa v. RF”, filed by a human rights activist on March 15, 2020, with the ECtHR, police officers hung the applicant on a “Palestinian rack”, but the prosecutor’s office also did not conduct a proper investigation into this fact. Unfortunately, there are more and more such cases in the Russian Federation. The internal security departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia do not consider such incidents as a manifestation of corruption, and leave them unpunished, not allowing citizens to appeal to the prosecutor’s office.

It should be noted that more and more often citizens of the Russian Federation file complaints about the violation of their rights, which are guaranteed by Article 6 of the Convention, in the framework of the criminal proceedings initiated by the authorities against them. Members of the IHRDC-CIPDH group of lawyers systematically file complaints with the European Court of Human Rights against sentences in which the applicants complain about the violation of their procedural rights guaranteed by Article 6 of the Convention: the right to confidential communication with a lawyer, the right to examine witnesses and the right to a reasoned decision of the Court.

It is important to note that the European Court identified problems in the legal system of the Russian Federation, which the authorities of the Russian Federation had to eliminate and prevent violations in the future.

To such a systemic problem as provocation of a crime, the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly focused its attention, however, the authorities of the Russian Federation have not been able to eliminate the conditions under which conviction for provocation would be impossible. So the human rights activist Maxim Shnaider filed several complaints about the violation of the rights of citizens of the Russian Federation, who were convicted as a result of a provocation carried out against them. In the «Rusakov v. RF» case, a citizen was convicted as a result of provocation of a crime by state agents. There was no money in the case, and the bribe giver testified that he had not given money to anyone and was not going to give it. Despite this, the applicant was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment.

A rather rare violation of human rights is the violation of Article 7 of the Convention, which categorically prohibits the conviction of a person that is not based on the law. IHRDC-CIPDH expert Maxim Shnaider prepared a complaint in the case of «Kirbay v. RF», in which the investigating authorities charged the applicant 18 times. At the same time, the prosecution has not yet decided to which element of the crime the applicant is involved. The complaint is currently awaiting its first court decision.

The European Court of Human Rights attaches great importance to the protection of property rights, which is guaranteed by Protocol 1 of Article 1 of the Convention.

IHRDC-CIPDH Human rights activists sent several complaints about the violation of the rights of citizens of the Russian Federation guaranteed by this article.

Thus, in the «Zorkin v. RF» case, the applicant’s house was reclaimed after he had used it for more than 18 years. The house was demolished due to the fact that the authorities admitted the possibility of fraud by BTI employees and the fact that fraudsters provided deliberately false documents to the state registration authority. The authorities of the Russian Federation did not take any measures that were supposed to restore justice.

In another case, the authorities violated the applicant’s right to property when corrupt officials submitted false documents to the registration authorities, on the basis of which the boundaries of the plots were changed, which led to the demolition of 3 of the applicant’s houses.

Between 2015 and 2021, IHRDC-CIPDH expert Maxim Shnaider alone filed more than 180 complaints with the European Court of Human Rights on various violations of human rights that are protected by the Convention.

 

 

This publication is a joint effort of the IHRDC-CIPDH and the CIPDH Expert Group.

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Issued January 2022

 

 

 

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