In the midst of the recent brutal gang rape in Mykolaiv Oblast, human rights watchdog Amnesty International (AI) released on July 3 findings from a study of corruption within the state security services of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It focuses on how these security services – mostly KGB successor agencies – collude to extradite and deport potential asylum-seekers who are at risk of torture or harm upon return to their native country. Four Ukraine-specific cases were described in the report.
The Ombudsman Office of Ukraine didn’t
immediately respond to a request for comment on this article.
The report concluded that CIS member states
are increasingly cooperating to return people to central Asian countries where
they are at risk of torture. Specifically, AI found that “in the last two years
the authorities in Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Ukraine have stepped
up efforts to forcibly return members or suspected members of certain groups to
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan… with such regularity that they amount to a region
wide renditions programme.”
The human rights group believes that this
collusion is due to regional cooperation to ensure national and regional
security and to combat terrorism. Furthermore,
older employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and other security agencies
who were trained together, share a cultural background and a common language
that further contributes to these practices.
The following are three individuals, two of
whom AI describes in their report, who were in Ukraine prior to their disappearance
and later resurfaced in a foreign country.
According to AI, Hamidullo Turgunov, an
Uzbekistani, sought asylum in Ukraine in late 2009 after a series of attacks on
his village. When he applied for asylum at the Kyiv Migration Services office,
his application was rejected. When he did not receive replacement documents
verifying his status, he disappeared soon after. Almost two weeks later, he was
found in an Uzbekistani prison. Ukrainian authorities made no clarification on
whether he was abducted by Uzbekistani security forces.
The second case concerns Leonid
Razvozzhaev, a Russian citizen and aid to a Russian opposition party. He was
abducted in Kyiv in October 2012 and returned to Russia by Russian security
agents. After the incident, a spokesman of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of
Ukraine condoned the actions and stated that he was abducted “by law
enforcement officers or law enforcement officers by another state.”
Another rendition case that AI focused on earlier
was about Palestinian engineer Dirar Abu Sisi who vanished on a sleeper train
in Ukraine and ended up in an Israeli jail in 2011. Although his lawyer Tal
Linoy was not allowed to discuss how Abu Sisi ended up in the jail, he believes
that “Ukraine and its security forces were definitely involved.”
Ukraine is a signatory of many international
rights agreements. These agreements such as the Convention against Torture and
Other Cruel, or Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the
International Covenant on Civil and political Rights should protect individuals
from harm.
Even when international authorities
intervene in Ukraine like the European Court of Human Rights, AI says that
“these countries increasingly collude in abductions and forcible returns with
their central Asian counterparts.” The European Court of Human Rights has
described these actions as “an absolute negation of the rule of law” and that
“they demonstrate a profound disrespect on the part of Russia and Ukraine for
the European Court of Human Rights.”
Furthermore, Ukraine as a member of the
1951 Refugee Convention with other CIS members is obligated to provide the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) with information
pertaining to individuals seeking asylum and the opportunity to help them. AI states, however, that “it [Amnesty
International] is concerned that both in Ukraine and Kazakhstan UNHCR offices
are not always allowed to exercise supervisory responsibility in respect of the
Refugee Convention.”
AI believes that CIS members are not only
at fault, but also the international community. In their opinion, “the
Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has failed to hold Russia and
Ukraine responsible for ignoring the European court of Human Right’s interim
injunctions.”
When AI inquired about the failure to
explain the reasons for the cancellation of refugee status to the individuals
concerned or to provide for a meaningful appeal process, they received no
response.
Kyiv
Post Journalist Jesse Fleck can be reached at [email protected].
