Yuri Dud's film tells about law enforcers' practice of torture in Kuban

Yuri Dud, a popular Russian video blogger, has posted a documentary, in which torture victims shared their stories; and human rights activists told about their practice of inquiring into torture cases in Russia.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on November 9, the human rights project "Gulagu.net" posted video evidence of violence and torture practiced against residents of Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia and Azerbaijan at the above Saratov prison hospital.

Yuri Dud's film "Why They Torture in Russia" was posted on the YouTube channel "vDud" on December 7.

"This fall, evidence appeared: in Russia, people are tortured regularly and in huge numbers. The "Gulagu.net" project has posted a video. [...] However, this did not cause a broad public response. Perhaps because not everyone can be sympathetic to those who are in places of deprivation of liberty," Yuri Dud says in his video.

He has noted that his film focuses on how law enforcers torture people who are often innocent.

Sergey Romanov, the head of the Krasnodar branch of the Committee against Torture (CaT), said that torture used by law enforcers is a fairly frequent phenomenon for the Krasnodar Territory (also known as Kuban by the name of the main river). According to his story, it is especially difficult to investigate torture cases in Kuban – in five years, there has not been a single verdict passed against law enforcers on torture cases.

The film tells the story of four residents of Anapa who were detained by law enforcers in 2015 on charges of robbery.

"The guys said that they had been taken to the police station and tortured. One of them [...] told that they had been beaten up, tortured with electricity by connecting terminals to various parts of their bodies; and he was also raped. This fact was checked for a very long time; 11 resolutions were made on refusals to initiate a criminal case. Then, a criminal case was nevertheless opened," said Sergey Babinets form the CaT. However, according to his story, there are very few prospects for this case (in Russia) and, most likely, it will be sent to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on December 8, 2021 at 06:20 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.