FSB and Russian Interior Ministry Oppose Criminalizing Torture

Mediazona

January 29, 2019

The FSB (Russian Federal Security Service) and Russian Interior Ministry have opposed amending the Russian Criminal Code to define torture as a discrete instance of official criminal misconduct, arguing it would be “superfluous,” according to the security service’s published response to a recommendation made by the Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights.

According to the FSB, torture was covered by Russian Criminal Code Articles 117.2.d (“maltreatment involving torture”) and 286.3.a (“abuse of authority involving torture”).

The Interior Ministry voiced a similar opinion, listing the articles of the Criminal Code that, in its opinion, “fully” treat actions meeting the definition of torture.

The FSB has also opposed establishing a single database of detainees that would enable loved ones of criminal suspects and people charged with crimes, as well as lawyers and members of the Public Monitoring Commissions, to discover their whereabouts.

The FSB argued this would enable people not involved in criminal investigations but who had a stake in their outcome, including criminal accomplices, to access information. It noted a database of this sort could threaten national security when cases of treason and espionage were investigated.

In September 2018, the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights held a special sixty-fourth session dealing with observation of the principles of openness and legality in penal institutions.

The council made a point of recommending the criminalization of torture per se in order to bring Russian criminal law into compliance with the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

The UN Committee against Torture has on several occasions recommended that Russia explicitly criminalize torture, but Russian authorities have ignored the recommendations, citing the articles in the Russian Criminal Code dealing with “maltreatment.”

“The conclusion here is that the Russian Federation is unable to explain how it prosecutes torture. This is simply not good enough,” Jens Modvig, chair of the UN Committee against Torture, said during a July 26, 2018, meeting in Geneva to discuss the sixth periodic report by the Russian Federation on its efforts to implement the Convention against Torture.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Illustration by Anna Morozova. Courtesy of Mediazona