46th session of the Human Rights Council
Item 3
Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on torture
Intervention by Ukraine
(Geneva, March 8, 2021)
Madam President,
We would like to thank Mr.Melzer for his report and reaffirm Ukraine’s commitment to observe its international obligations and to facilitate further the full implementation of the special procedures’ mandates.
However, as I presume you well noticed during your visit to Ukraine in 2018, various human rights violations, including torture and ill-treatment, within the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine have become a part of everyday life since 2014.
Let me draw your particular attention to the one of the most horrid prisons in the temporary occupied city of Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine. Being a secret institution, this harsh facility is unofficially called “Izoliatsiia” (Isolation), which is completely under control of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. The prison became quickly akin to, according to the former detainee of that facility Stanislav Aseyev, a “modern concentration camp” where torture, humiliation, rape of both women and men, as well as forced hard physical labour are the rules of the day.
We call upon you, Mr. Special Rapporteur, to keep in view the above mentioned information about “Izoliatsiia”. We also insist that there is an urgent need to increase international monitoring in temporarily occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas to prevent further human rights violations therein, including systematic practice of torture, inhuman treatment and deliberate non-provision of medical care in breach of the norms of the international law.
I thank you.