The suspect is handcuffed behind the back, above the level of the head, whereby the victim's back is arched painfully and he is hung from the ceiling. Amnesty International Torture has included adolescents 13-17 years old. Deaths in custody from beatings on the chest while handcuffed has been registered as heart failure. The report of the Russian Presidential Commission on Human Rights noted that in 1994 more than 20,000 Interior Ministry employees were disciplined for breaking the law while conducting investigations and interrogations. This figure did not indicate how many of these violations involved torture.
Current legislation facilitates torture.
We have to take all of them out of Moscow. The conditions in many prisons, particularly for those awaiting trial, remain appalling and amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Some prisoners have waited years for their cases to come to court. Such people spend an average of 10 months in pre-trial detention. A 16 year old boy was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment for stealing three hamsters from a pet shop.