ANALYSIS: Ombudswoman reports on human rights (05/04/03)

ANALYSIS

Ombudswoman reports on human rights

by Jan Maksymiuk
RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report

Ombudswoman Nina Karpachova on April 18 delivered an annual report to the Verkhovna Rada on the human rights situation in Ukraine, Interfax and UNIAN reported. Ms. Karpachova told lawmakers that the observance of human rights in the country is "far away" from international standards.

According to Ms. Karpachova, after the post of ombudsman was established in 1998, she received complaints mostly from disabled persons, pensioners and jobless people, while now she is more and more often addressed by journalists, law enforcers, state clerks and officials. She said that, in general, some 50 percent of complaints pertain to violations of civil rights (primarily, the right to a legal defense), while another 40 percent refer to violations of social and economic rights.

Ms. Karpachova revealed that in the past year, she has been addressed by 12,000 citizens who complained that police used torture against them. The most common examples of torture during interrogations in order to force suspects into pleading guilty, she said, were beatings, putting gas masks or plastic bags on the head to make people suffocate, applying electric shocks to the body, or hanging people by their handcuffed hands.

She stressed that in many cases, the application of torture led to death, permanent disability, or health disorders. Last year, more than 1,000 police officers were fired because of "inclination to violence," application of force and torture to citizens.

Ms. Karpachova said that as of January 1, nearly 150,000 Ukrainians served their sentences in corrective-labor colonies, while more than 43,000 were under investigation in isolation wards. According to the ombudswoman, Ukraine is the world's leader as regards the number of suspects to whom pretrial detention is applied - on average, 37 percent of suspects are arrested before trial. Ms. Karpachova stressed that journalism in Ukraine continues to be one of the most dangerous professions. She recalled that 36 journalists have died violently in Ukraine since 1993, adding that Ukrainian journalists are killed more often that those in a zone of military conflict. According to the ombudswoman, beating and intimidating journalists, freezing the bank accounts of media outlets, confiscating newspapers and other publications right off the printing press have become common practice in Ukraine.

Jan Maksymiuk is the Belarus, Ukraine and Poland specialist on the staff of RFE/RL Newsline.

| Home Page |