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Russia 2019 Human Rights Report

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Russia 2019 Human Rights Report RUSSIA 2019 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Russian Federation has a highly centralized, authoritarian political system dominated by President Vladimir Putin. The bicameral Federal Assembly consists of a directly elected lower house (State Duma) and an appointed upper house (Federation Council), both of which lack independence from the executive. The 2016 State Duma elections and the 2018 presidential election were marked by accusations of government interference and manipulation of the electoral process, including the exclusion of meaningful opposition candidates. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Investigative Committee, the Office of the Prosecutor General, and the National Guard are responsible for law enforcement. The FSB is responsible for state security, counterintelligence, and counterterrorism as well as for fighting organized crime and corruption. The national police force, under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, is responsible for combating all crime. The National Guard assists the FSB Border Guard Service in securing borders, administers gun control, combats terrorism and organized crime, protects public order, and guards important state facilities. The National Guard also participates in armed defense of the country’s territory in coordination with Ministry of Defense forces. Except in rare cases, security forces generally reported to civilian authorities. National-level civilian authorities, however, had, at best, limited control over security forces in the Republic of Chechnya, which were accountable only to the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. The country’s occupation and purported annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula continued to affect the human rights situation there significantly and negatively. The Russian government continued to arm, train, lead, and fight alongside Russia-led forces in eastern Ukraine. Credible observers attributed thousands of civilian deaths and injuries, as well as numerous abuses, to Russia-led forces in Ukraine’s Donbas region (see the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Ukraine). Authorities also conducted politically motivated arrests, detentions, and trials of Ukrainian citizens in Russia, many of whom claimed to have been tortured. Significant human rights issues included: extrajudicial killings, including of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons in Chechnya by local government authorities; enforced disappearances; pervasive torture by RUSSIA 2 government law enforcement personnel that sometimes resulted in death and occasionally involved sexual violence or punitive psychiatric incarceration; harsh and life-threatening conditions in prisons; arbitrary arrest and detention; political prisoners; severe arbitrary interference with privacy; severe suppression of freedom of expression and media, including the use of “antiextremism” and other laws to prosecute peaceful dissent; violence against journalists; blocking and filtering of internet content and banning of online anonymity; severe suppression of the right of peaceful assembly; severe suppression of freedom of association, including overly restrictive laws on “foreign agents” and “undesirable foreign organizations”; severe restrictions of religious freedom; refoulement of refugees; severe limits on participation in the political process, including restrictions on opposition candidates’ ability to seek public office and conduct political campaigns, and on the ability of civil society to monitor election processes; widespread corruption at all levels and in all branches of government; coerced abortion and sterilization; trafficking in persons; and crimes involving violence or threats of violence against persons with disabilities, LGBTI persons, and members of ethnic minorities. The government failed to take adequate steps to prosecute or punish most officials who committed abuses, resulting in a climate of impunity. Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from: a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings There were numerous reports the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings. Credible nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and independent media outlets published reports indicating that in December 2018-January 2019, local authorities in the Republic of Chechnya renewed a campaign of violence against individuals perceived to be members of the LGBTI community. According to the NGO Russian LGBT Network, local Chechen authorities illegally detained and tortured at least 40 individuals (see section 1.c.), including two who reportedly died in custody from torture. According to human rights organizations, as of year’s end, authorities failed to investigate the allegations or reports of extrajudicial killings and mass torture of LGBTI persons in Chechnya from 2017 and continued to deny that there were any LGBTI persons in Chechnya. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2019 United States Department of State • Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor RUSSIA 3 On May 24, Maksim Lapunov, a survivor of the 2017 “antigay purge” in Chechnya who came forward publicly and offered to cooperate with investigative bodies, filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), claiming that federal authorities failed to investigate his case properly. On July 23, the human rights NGOs Memorial Human Rights Center and Committee against Torture, as well as the investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta, published new information about a summary execution of 27 men alleged to have taken place in 2017 at the A.A. Kadyrov patrol police unit headquarters in Grozny, Chechnya. According to the new information, at least 14 eyewitnesses, who were detained at the unit at the same time as the 27 victims but were tortured rather than killed, were able to corroborate that the victims were in police custody at the time of their alleged killings. Local authorities continued to deny that the 27 men were ever in custody and maintained that they left the country to join ISIS in Syria. The 14 witnesses described the involvement of several high-ranking Chechen officials, including unit head Aslan Iraskhanov, in the killings and subsequent cover-up. The NGOs detailed continuing pressure on the families of the 27 victims not to file police reports about the disappearance of their family members. On September 16, relatives of eight of the 27 victims filed a complaint with the ECHR. There were reports that police beat or otherwise abused persons, in some cases resulting in their death. For example, according to press reports, on April 11, Moscow police officers severely beat Sulli Yunusilau, a 46-year-old man from Dagestan. Yunusilau died in a hospital a week later from his injuries. On April 24, authorities charged three officers with assault and abuse of authority. As of December the investigation continued; one suspect was under house arrest while the other two were in pretrial detention. There were multiple reports that, in some prison colonies, authorities systematically tortured inmates (see section 1.c.), in some cases resulting in death or suicide. According to media reports, on March 12, Ayub Tuntuyev, a former bodyguard to former president of Chechnya Akhmad Kadyrov, was found dead in Penal Colony Number 6 (IK-6) in the Vladimir region. Since his placement in the colony, Tuntuyev had complained repeatedly about abuse by prison officials, including severe beatings and torture by electric shock. In 2016 he filed a complaint about the abuse with the ECHR. While prison authorities maintained that Tuntuyev committed suicide, his relatives reported that his body was bruised and that his lungs and kidneys had been removed; they told journalists that they did not believe he committed suicide. On March 25, the Investigative Committee Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2019 United States Department of State • Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor RUSSIA 4 concluded that there was no sign that Tuntuyev had been beaten and as of November there were no indications of any further investigation into the case. Physical abuse and hazing, which in some cases resulted in death or suicide, continued to be a problem in the armed forces. On February 10, Stepan Tsymbal, a 19-year-old conscript, died at the Pogonovo military base in the Voronezh region. His family reported that his unit initially informed them that he had died naturally of a heart attack, although his arms and legs had been taped together and a plastic bag was wrapped around his head. According to the human rights organization Zona Prava, Tsymbal’s commanding officer beat him and accused him of stealing vodka on the day he died, threatening that Tsymbal would face consequences if the vodka did not reappear by the evening. Medical examiners concluded that Tsymbal committed suicide that night. His relatives cast doubt on these findings and insisted that investigators considered that his death was not self-inflicted. On March 19, the Investigative Committee charged Tsymbal’s commanding officer with “exceeding authority” and “incitement to suicide.” On February 5, the deputy chairman of the Investigative Committee told the Kommersant newspaper that there were new developments in the investigation of the 2015 killing of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, but it was premature to make them public. Human rights activists and the Nemtsov family continued to believe that authorities were intentionally ignoring
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