43rd session of the Human Rights Council
Item 3
Clustered interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on torture
Intervention by Ukraine
(Geneva, February 28, 2020)
Madam President,
We welcome the Special Rapporteur on torture, Mr Nils Melzer, and thank him for his report.
What strikes us is that nearly every constitutive element of psychological torture, as you describe them in the report, is in broad and regular use by the Russian occupation administrations in the temporarily occupied Donbas. This is evidenced by virtually every person illegally detained in Russia or in the occupied Donbass who were released on December 29, 2019, as a result of the efforts of the leadership of Ukraine within the N4 (Normandie Four) process.
The shameful practice of torture and ill-treatment, various methods of psychological pressure towards Ukrainian citizens are extensively used by the occupying Power in Crimea, disproportionally affecting members of the Crimean Tatar community.
We call on you to pay proper attention to the existing irrefutable evidence of the systematic practice of torture, unhuman treatment and deliberate non-provision of medical care applied, in breach of the norms of international law, in the temporarily occupied territories of Donbas and Crimea.
I thank you.