On October 20, the UnMode team turned to the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council with a report on the gross violations of the rights of prisoners in Ukraine, in particular in penal colonies in the Kherson region, temporarily occupied by Russia.
On October 19, 2022, UnMode received information that, fearing the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the Kherson region. all prisoners are taken to Golopristan IK-7 (designed for 250 people), now there are already 550 convicts there, and on October 20, 2022, it is planned to receive another 200 prisoners. Given that in all correctional institutions in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, we have already recorded terrible conditions of detention, then such overcrowding (more than three times) directly threatens the lives of prisoners. According to Yanina Stemkovskaya, a representative of UnMode in Ukraine, in the last month alone, 4 people died in IK-7 due to the lack of medical care.
From May 14, 2022, by order of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, all employees of penitentiary institutions of the Kherson region. sent on indefinite leave "until the expiration of military operations." Since that time, all the colonies and pre-trial detention centers of the Kherson region have come under the control of the collaborationist administration.
Prisoners in the occupied territories, de facto, are in "double" captivity, but do not have the appropriate procedural status.
In October 2022, representatives of an independent international commission of the UN made a report at a meeting of the UN General Assembly on massive violations of humanitarian law and human rights in Ukraine, in which there is no information on the situation of prisoners in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
On October 17, 2022, at the meeting of the 136th session of the UN Committee on Human Rights, in Geneva, the European Prison Litigation NETWORK (EPLN) presented its report (https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/RUS/INT_CCPR_CSS_RUS_50031_E. pdf) on the situation of prisoners in Russia, including the occupied territories of Ukraine. Facts similar to the EPLN report were previously recorded by the Eastern Human Rights Group https://tribun.com.ua/37385
In all the above reports, there was no information about massive violations of human rights against prisoners in the Kherson region.
Previously, UnMode has already published interim results of the monitoring of prisons in 2022, where out of 44 prisoners surveyed in Ukraine, 28 are in the occupied territories (Kherson region correctional colony (hereinafter referred to as IK) No. 7, IK No. 90, Kharkiv region TEC No. 100, AIK No. 25 ) another 10 people were previously in the occupied territories (Kherson region, Kharkov region, DPR)
The situation of prisoners in correctional facilities in the temporarily occupied Kherson region can be called a humanitarian catastrophe (hunger, torture, lack of communication and any treatment)
Prisoners of the Kherson region. are in complete isolation. This could have been avoided by timely evacuation, but in March 2022, Lyudmila Denisova, the Ombudsman of Ukraine, announced that all convicts in the Kherson region. were evacuated to safe areas https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2022/03/9/7329814/
People feel a threat to their lives and complete lack of rights, they feel forgotten by the authorities and the entire international human rights community.
The UnMode team hopes for the help of partners in publicizing the growing problems and gross violations of the rights of prisoners in Ukraine and, in particular, in the Kherson region temporarily occupied by Russia.
*UnMode (community Movement for Access to Justice) is a network-type organization that consists of human rights activists from the community and therefore has a high level of trust among prisoners. Since the beginning of the war unleashed by Russia on the territory of Ukraine, our organization has been documenting cases of violations of the rights of prisoners in the countries of its presence, including in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.