You're reading: Helsinki Group: More than 700,000 Ukrainians tortured by police

A study carried out by the Kharkiv Institute for Social Research with the Kharkiv Human Rights Group said that more than 700,000 Ukrainians who were detained by the police last year were subjected to some sort of torture or ill-treatment.

“Violence in police custody is systemic yet only the isolated few get punished”, said Andriy Didenko from the Kharkiv Human Rights Group.

He added that there has been an increase in the amount of torture since Prime Minister Mykola Azarov’s government abolished the civic council that monitors human rights. Previously, for 2 1/2 years mobile groups could visit unimpeded any places of confinement under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They met with detainees, recorded violations of human rights. That was to a large extent instrumental in preventing the use of torture against detainees.

The Helsinki Group said there have been three judgements by the European Court of Human Rights regarding ineffective investigations into cases of unlawful violence.

Aigul Mukanova from the Strategic Court Defence Centre believes that “beatings in police stations have been turned into a business. A person is detained and has a confession beaten out of him that he committed a crime he has no idea about. They draw up a statement, summon the detainee’s relatives and demand a certain amount of money. When they get the money they rip up the statement and throw it away".