Amnesty International on Tuesday called details of the torture at the hands of police officers of Artem Kagardin, a Russian poet who was detained and raped for reading poetry against the invasion of Ukraine, “horrific”.
The details of Artem Kagardin’s detention and torture are appalling, even given the appalling human rights standards in the Russian Federation today,” Natalia Zviagina, Amnesty International’s Russian Federation Director, said in a statement.
insisted that “The world should not look the other way” and stressed that “it seems that the Russian policemen believe they have total impunity for all kinds of human rights violations against people who oppose Russia’s war in Ukraine.”
Zviagina revealed that the Russian police “did not hide” the torture of Kamardin, “by forcing him, visibly beaten, to apologize on camera”, adding that they “immediately publicized their forced apologies through pro-Kremlin social media”. .
“Because of this situation, Amnesty claims that the The Russian authorities will launch an “independent, impartial and effective investigation to the allegations of torture and other ill-treatment” against the poet.
Their refusal to do so should be one more signal to the international community of the need to use all applicable international, regional and national mechanisms to ensure that those responsible for these violations and other crimes under international law face justice in fair trials,” he stressed. . .
The European version of the newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” reported on Monday that several Moscow police beat and raped the activist with a baton. Later, forced him to record an apology videoin which he appears with cuts and bruises on his body, after having declared himself against the annexation of eastern Ukraine by the Russian Federation.
You the police did not allow the poet’s lawyer, Leonid Soloviev, to enter the apartmentclaiming that they were conducting an inspection at the home of Kagardin, who was taken into police custody.
The poet is being investigated as a suspect in a case of “incitement to hatred and enmity with threats of violence”, based on article 282 of the Russian Penal Code, along with activists Nikolai Daineko and Yegor Shtovba. If found guilty, they could be sentenced to six years in prison.
Source: Observadora
