Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Gli "antifascisti" dei miei zebedei

http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/28/ukraine-rebel-forces-detain-torture-civilians
 
 
Ukraine: Rebel Forces Detain, Torture Civilians
Dire Concern for Safety of Captives
 
AUGUST 28, 2014
 
(Berlin) – Russian-backed insurgent forces in eastern Ukraine are 
arbitrarily detaining civilians and subjecting them to torture, 
degrading treatment, and forced labor. They also have detained civilians 
for use as hostages.
 
Beginning in April 2014, armed fighters supporting the self-proclaimed 
Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) have 
captured hundreds of civilians, targeting presumed critics, including 
journalists, pro-Ukrainian political activists, religious activists, and 
in some cases their family members.
 
“Pro-Russian insurgents are regularly committing horrendous crimes,” 
said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights 
Watch. “There are solid grounds to be seriously concerned about the 
safety and well-being of anyone held by insurgent forces in eastern 
Ukraine.”
 
In August Human Rights Watch researchers in eastern Ukraine documented 
20 cases in which rebel fighters had captured civilians, and interviewed 
12 people who said their captors had beaten, kicked, stabbed, or 
lacerated them, burned them with cigarettes, or subjected them to mock 
executions. At least six were used as hostages either for ransom or to 
exchange with captured insurgents held by Ukrainian authorities. Another 
is apparently awaiting exchange.
 
Three people whose cases Human Rights Watch documented remain in 
captivity in Donetsk.
 
Former detainees told Human Rights Watch that insurgents held them at 
various bases in Donetsk, Sloviansk, and Makyivka, including in security 
services (SBU) buildings, local administration buildings, and other 
buildings. On August 17, Human Rights Watch researchers witnessed a DPR 
representative at the Donetsk SBU building read a list of 55 detainees 
to a large group of local residents who gathered there hoping to find 
their missing relatives. Local people confirmed to Human Rights Watch 
researchers that insurgents read out a list of civilian detainees every 
evening.
 
Human Rights Watch also examined lists of captives maintained by 
Sloviansk insurgents, which human rights lawyers found in the SBU 
building after Ukrainian forces took control of the city. The lawyers 
matched some of the names on the list to people whose cases Human Rights 
Watch documented.
 
Human Rights Watch is also concerned by evidence of extra-judicial 
executions, and other civilian deaths in custody. For example, Human 
Rights Watch came into possession of three death sentences against 
civilians apparently issued by the Sloviansk insurgents’ summary war 
tribunal. Two were marked “executed.”
 
Human Rights Watch has not independently verified whether those named in 
the death sentences were in fact executed, but in July the Internet news 
media site Buzzfeed and two other foreign reporters found similar 
execution orders in Sloviansk and had them “corroborated by sources 
including a man who stood ‘trial.’” One former captive interviewed by 
Human Rights Watch in August said he witnessed the interrogation of a 
man whose dead body with marks of torture was found several days later.
 
Human Rights Watch could not establish the exact number of civilian 
captives insurgents have held in eastern Ukraine since April. A July 15 
report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human 
Rights cited a Ukrainian Interior Ministry figure of 717 people, 
including civilians and members of Ukrainian forces, “abducted by armed 
groups in eastern Ukraine” between mid-April and mid-July.
 
At the end of August the Center for Freeing Prisoners, a nongovernmental 
group run by former Ukrainian military officers negotiating for release 
of hostages, published a list of 501 people whose release they are 
trying to secure. At least 129 were identified as civilians.
 
A psychologist in Dniepropetrovsk who worked with several people who had 
been tortured during rebel captivity described them to Human Rights 
Watch as “distressed,” “deeply traumatized,” and “extremely frightened.” 
One, he said, was covered with bruises from severe beatings, “stared 
into space, would not talk or react to verbal stimulation, and although 
he had no prior psychiatric condition, required immediate psychiatric 
hospitalization.” A human rights lawyer in Kiev who took on the cases of 
six former captives told Human Rights Watch that all of her clients had 
been beaten in captivity and that some alleged they were tortured with 
electric shocks, cut with knives, and burned with cigarettes.
 
Common article 3 to the Geneva Conventions and article 4.2 of Additional 
Protocol II, which govern non-international armed conflicts, ban taking 
hostages and abducting civilians. As a party to the conflict rebels may 
detain enemy soldiers or persons on security grounds, subject to due 
process. But Human Rights Watch found that rebel forces are vastly 
exceeding this authority, essentially abducting civilians they perceive 
as critics and using some as “bargaining chips,” as one of the former 
leaders of the self-proclaimed DPR said publicly.
 
Torture and cruel or degrading treatment of people in custody is 
absolutely prohibited under international human rights and humanitarian 
law, and states have an obligation to prosecute those responsible.
 
“Self-proclaimed authorities in eastern Ukraineshould immediately free 
anyone held arbitrarily, put an end to arbitrary detentions, 
extrajudicial killings, hostage-taking, and torture of detainees, and 
treat anyone in custody – civilians and military alike – humanely and 
with dignity,” Williamson said. “Russia should use its influence with 
insurgent forces in eastern Ukraine to stop these blatant violations and 
ensure that those responsible are brought to justice.”
 
Ongoing Detentions
 
Human Rights Watch documented cases of an artist, a political activist, 
and a presumed critic of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), who remain 
in captivity by insurgents in Donetsk region.
 
Serhiy Zakharov
 
On August 6, 2014, insurgents detained Serhiy Zakharov, 47, an artist 
from Donetsk. At this writing, Zakharov remains in captivity in the SBU 
building as punishment for his caricatures of insurgent leaders.
 
In July Zakharov created an anonymous art group, Murzilka, which 
published online and as part of public installations in central Donetsk 
various caricatures of Igor Girkin, the former DPR defense chief, and 
other DPR fighters. Zakharov’s brother, Andriy, told Human Rights Watch 
that on August 6 a group of armed insurgents broke into Zakharov’s 
house, searched the house and garage, put Zakharov and some of his 
belongings into their vehicle, and drove off. Zakharov’s relatives 
learned what happened from neighbors who witnessed the detention. 
Several days later, DPR representatives confirmed to Zakharov’s family 
that they were holding him in the SBU building and that an 
“investigation” into his “unlawful actions” was under way.
 
Andriy Zakharov told Human Rights Watch:
 
Murzilka became pretty popular on Facebook, and journalists would reach 
out to Serhiy for interview requests…. He actually gave an interview the 
day before the DPR came for him. On the evening of August 6, [neighbors 
said] armed men arrived in a minibus and surrounded his house, as if 
they were after a dangerous criminal…. The house was totally torn apart 
as a result of their search. They took away Serhiy’s computer and other 
electronics, all his drawings, and stuff. Though they did not say how 
long they’d be holding him, what exactly they were accusing him of, and 
what his punishment would be.
 
On August 17 Zakharov was temporarily released and DPR representatives 
told him to return to the SBU building the next day to pick up his 
identification documents and other belongings. The next day Zakharov 
went to a hospital for a medical examination of his injuries from 
beatings in captivity, including x-rays that revealed rib fractures, and 
then returned to the SBU building. A friend watched him enter the 
building and waited outside for him until late evening. The guards 
refused to answer his questions about Zakharov. Later that week, 
Zakharov’s relatives received information from DPR representatives that 
he was being held in the SBU building to serve “30 days’ detention as 
punishment for his actions.”
 
Dmytro Potekhin
 
On August 7, DPR fighters in Donetsk detained a prominent pro-Ukraine 
activist, Dmytro Potekhin, 37, who had arrived the day before apparently 
to see how the city was affected by the armed conflict. Family members 
said the DPR leadership has accused Potekhin of spying and that he 
remains a hostage. The insurgents are apparently negotiating with the 
Ukrainian authorities over his possible exchange for captured rebels.
 
Potekhin’s family learned of his detention on August 12 when an 
unidentified person contacted them through social media, claiming he had 
been held with Potekhin at the insurgent base at the Izolyatsiya plant 
in Donetsk. The person told Potekhin’s relatives that the insurgents 
accused Potekhin of being a spy but did not beat him.
 
During the next two weeks, several other sources told Potekhin’s family 
that he was at the Izolyatsiya plant, that his captors did not torture 
him, and that negotiations regarding his exchange were under way.
 
On August 25 Potekhin’s parents told Human Rights Watch that they 
thought they recognized him among the Ukrainian prisoners paraded by 
insurgents in the center of Donetsk on August 24.
 
Mykola Mykolaiv (not his real name)
 
On August 16, insurgents in Donetsk detained Mykola Mykolaiv, 54. On 
August 17 his wife, Anna (not her real name), received confirmation that 
he was held in the SBU building but could not get any information about 
the reason for his detention.
 
Anna told Human Rights Watch that when she returned to their apartment 
late in the evening of August 16, it was “literally turned upside down” 
and that her husband was gone. Next-door neighbors told her that earlier 
that evening several armed men entered the apartment, searched it, 
forced Mykolaiv into their vehicle along with some of the family’s 
belongings, and drove off. When Anna examined the apartment she realized 
that her husband’s documents, phone, laptop, and some cash were missing.
 
The next day, Anna heard her husband’s name read among 54 other names on 
the SBU list of detainees. The DPR representative who read the list told 
Anna that he did not know what Mykolaiv was accused of and how long he 
would be in detention.
 
Anna said:
 
He did not participate in any rallies or anything. Maybe it’s because he 
said some critical things about the DPR on his VKontakte [social 
network] account…. On the other hand, I’m even more frightened they 
would accuse him of being a spy. He always rides his bicycle to work and 
they [the DPR] think informers for Ukrainian forces do this to take a 
close look at different sites. We have some unfriendly neighbors who 
could have reported him to the DPR, simply out of spite…. [The DPR] 
don’t answer my questions except by saying that they are still “working 
on it.”
 
Mykolaiv apparently remains at the SBU.
 
Taking Relatives of Presumed Critics Hostage
 
Activists from Donetsk and Luhansk regions seeking release of captives 
told Human Rights Watch that in recent months they had documented 
several cases in which insurgents captured or threatened parents of 
pro-Ukrainian activists or journalists who had fled the region for 
security reasons in order to force their children to return and give 
themselves up. Human Rights Watch documented one such case in the 
Donetsk region.
 
Iryna and Valeriy Ischenko
 
On August 9, 2014, armed men in Donetsk raided the apartment of Iryna 
Ischenko and her husband, Valeriy, forced the couple into a car, and 
drove away with them. They were held until August 19, for the most part 
at the Izolyatsiya base in Donetsk, and then released but without their 
identity documents. Insurgents appeared to have targeted the couple 
because their daughter, Viktoria, who had left Donetsk two months 
earlier, had worked for a Ukrainian-language media portal.
 
Viktoria Ischenko told Human Rights Watch that on August 9 her mother 
called her at 3:40 p.m. and said that people claiming to be from the DPR 
had just knocked on their door, demanding to talk about her. After her 
mother refused to let them in, they left, threatening to return and 
break down the door. The daughter tried unsuccessfully to reach her 
parents for several hours. Later that day, the couple’s next- door 
neighbors described to Viktoria what had happened. She said:
 
The neighbors [told me they] heard some noise, looked out, and saw that 
the door to my parents’ apartment was open. They stepped inside and saw 
two men in civilian clothes and an armed man in fatigues tearing the 
place apart. The men chased [the neighbors] away, but my mother managed 
to say, “This is happening because my daughter is a journalist.” The DPR 
people spent a total of four hours in the apartment. At 8 p.m., they 
[DPR representatives] led my parents down the stairs and carried out 
their computer and some other devices.
 
Viktoria worked at the Ukrainian-language media portal 
Ngo.donetsk.ua
, 
which stopped operating in the summer of 2014. In 2013 she participated 
in a workshop on information technology sponsored by the United States 
embassy in Ukraine. She said that on the day her parents were detained, 
armed insurgents visited the parents of another pro-Ukraine activist who 
had also left Donetsk several months earlier. They threatened to hold 
the activist’s parents hostage until she returned to Donetsk and gave 
herself up to the DPR. A man called the young woman, claimed he was a 
DPR representative, and told her to return to Donetsk if she wanted her 
parent to be safe. They have not been harmed.
 
Torture of Activists Captured by Insurgents
 
Since April 2014 Human Rights Watch has documented over two dozen of 
cases of insurgents torturing political activists they detained in 
Donetsk, Sloviansk, Makyivka, and Luhansk. While in eastern Ukraine in 
August, Human Rights Watch researchers documented several more.
 
Dmytro Kluger, Viktor Levchuk, and Olha Klimenko
 
In mid-May insurgents detained three pro-Ukraine activists in Donetsk, 
held them in captivity for six days, tortured them, and used them for 
forced labor.
 
Dmytro Kluger, 35, said that police stopped his car on May 22 at about 
noon as he and fellow activists Viktor Levchuk and Olha Klimenko were 
leaving Donetsk. Police called the DPR authorities and a group of armed 
insurgents promptly arrived and took all three to the SBU building in 
Donetsk. Armed men in fatigues searched all three, put Kluger and 
Levchuk into a small basement cell together, and put Klimenko into a 
separate cell. The captors pulled Kluger’s cap over his eyes and wrapped 
tape around it.
 
After an hour, men took Levchuk away for questioning. Two hours later 
they took Kluger to the second floor. Kluger was able to make out three 
interrogators wearing military fatigues. Two other men stood behind him 
and delivered kicks and punches. He said another five people were 
observing the proceedings:
 
They [interrogators] asked me if I was involved with Euromaidan. They 
also wanted to know if I worked for one of the election commissions [for 
the May 25 Ukrainian presidential elections]. I admitted to being on an 
election commission and they started screaming, “How much do they pay 
you? What do you do for them?” Those who stood behind me beat me for 
giving snide replies or thinking too much before answering their 
questions. They punched me on the head, on the liver, in the solar 
plexus. One of them put his gun to my head and pulled the trigger. The 
gun wasn’t loaded, but I did not know that. The beating went on for some 
40 minutes.... Then, a guy with a cover name, Cherep [Skull], took me 
back to the basement and said he’d tear my liver out if I didn’t get the 
chair of my election commission to come to them…. Their interrogations 
were all about breaking you.
 
Kluger said that the next day, the guards gave him fatigues to wear 
instead of his bloodied clothes and took him to the SBU yard where he 
saw another eight detainees, including Ruslan Kudryavtsev, an election 
commission chair from Donetsk. The insurgents split the prisoners into 
two groups. They dispatched the first group to fill bags with sand at 
checkpoints and tasked the second one with stripping the plastic 
covering off copper wire. Kluger was in the second group. He said that 
while the detainees worked, crouched over the rolls of wiring, the 
guards kept kicking and punching them on the back, arms, and legs, 
yelling that they were too slow, that they were “killers deployed by the 
Kiev junta.” In the evening, the guards took Kluger back to the 
basement, kicking him and saying that he had two hours to sleep before 
his next interrogation.
 
That evening Kluger tried unsuccessfully to slit his wrist using a key 
he had managed to hide from his captors. Later that evening he tried to 
strangle himself with his shoelace. He fainted and came to a while 
later, after his captors had poured water over him.
 
The next day, insurgents took him and Levchuk, who had suffered a 
dislocated shoulder during his interrogation the night before, to an 
emergency room in Donetsk. Both were covered in bruises. A doctor 
treated Levchuk’s shoulder, diagnosed Kluger with a concussion, and 
urged the insurgents to leave them both in the hospital. The insurgents 
said they would “provide the necessary treatment” themselves and took 
the men back to the SBU. For the next three days, the insurgents left 
Kluger to recover in his cell.
 
On May 26, insurgents forced Kluger to come out and work again. The 
following evening, guards took Kluger into a room where an insurgent 
commander with the code name Kerch, who said he was a native of Crimea, 
was already talking to Levchuk, Klimenko, and Kudryavtsev. Kerch said 
they were free to go, indicating they had been “exchanged” for captured 
insurgents, apparently along with several captured members of the 
Ukrainian forces. All three were released immediately.
 
On May 30 Kluger filed a complaint with the Ukrainian security services 
in Kiev for the purposes of future prosecution of those responsible for 
torturing him and had a medical examination that revealed a basal skull 
fracture, a perforated eardrum, an acute ear infection, and multiple 
hematomas.
 
Yevheniya Zakrevskaya, Levchuk’s lawyer, told Human Rights Watch that in 
addition to a dislocated shoulder, Levchuk suffered head traumas, 
multiple bruises on his face and neck, facial skin damage, and a 
cigarette burn on his hand. Kluger said that insurgents beat Klimenko 
less severely than the men but nonetheless repeatedly hit her on the 
head and slapped her so hard during one interrogation that she fell off 
the chair onto the concrete floor and suffered multiple bruises.
 
Anna Guz and Fedir Menshakov
 
At the end of May insurgents detained pro-Ukraine activists Anna Guz, 
30, and her partner, Fedir Menshakov, 28, and held them hostage for five 
days at a police building in Makyivka, in Donetsk region. Both were 
tortured and released in a prisoner exchange with Ukrainian government 
authorities.
 
Guz told Human Rights Watch that at about 8 a.m. on May 27, she and 
Menshakov were awakened by loud knocks on their apartment door in 
Donetsk and men yelling that they were from the DPR. When Guz opened the 
door, she saw seven armed men in military fatigues. They said that Guz 
and Menshakov were under arrest, threatened them with Kalashnikov 
assault rifles, searched the apartment, and took their laptop, camera, 
cell phones, credit cards, and pro-Ukraine leaflets. They also tore a 
Ukrainian flag off the wall yelling, “You know that Ukrainian flags have 
been banned on DPR territory after May 11 [the DPR referendum]!” They 
then tied the flag around Guz’s head, covering her eyes, blindfolded 
Menshakov, marched both activists down the stairs, pushed them into a 
vehicle, and drove off.
 
When the car stopped, the armed men led them into a damp basement. After 
a short while, they took Guz to another room, sat her down on a box, and 
untied the blindfold. Guz saw two women and two men, all in military 
fatigues. Another camouflage-clad man with a knife ran into the room and 
threw himself at Guz screaming, “I’ll kill you, I’ll cut you to pieces! 
You’ll eat that Ukrainian flag of yours!” He slapped her hard on the 
face, causing her to bleed. For the next two hours, the man tortured 
Guz, beating her, poking her with his knife, piercing her skin, and 
cutting her face, hands, arms, and neck:
 
He was yelling non-stop and waving his knife close to my face…. He was 
hitting me on the knees with handcuffs, then poked me with his knife on 
one knee, pushed the knife in by half an inch, and turned it. He did the 
same to my other knee. He would run out and then come back and torture 
me again. He threatened me with gang rape. The whole thing continued for 
some two hours and the other four were just watching, like in a theater….
 
Finally, he says, “Bow your head. It’s time to kill you!” and slashed me 
on the back of my neck. So, my neck is bleeding, my hands and arms are 
all cut up and bleeding – the lacerations are deep – and he drags me to 
another room on the first floor with some armed people in it. Those 
people actually asked me questions – in which events I took part, what 
kind of activism I was involved in. They said that if I wanted to live I 
had to trick other activists and journalists into coming to them.
 
Because Guz was bleeding heavily, the guards asked a nurse on the 
premises to clean and dress her lacerations. She also secretly gave Guz 
a shot of anesthetic. Her captors then forced her to wash the floors in 
the hall, even though her hands were still bleeding through the 
dressings, and then to clean the inside of a car in which bodies of 
killed insurgents had been brought to the base. When Guz was washing the 
car, she told Human Rights Watch, the base commander arrived and, 
indicating Guz’s condition, berated the insurgents. “Why did you do 
this? Are you nuts? She is up for exchange – what would they think about 
our treatment of prisoners?!” The next day, her torturer took her to a 
hospital to treat her right index finger, which was injured and would 
not stop bleeding. While leaving the yard, Guz saw a sign on the gate 
that read, “Makyivka Police Organized Crime Department.”
 
At Makyivka’s central hospital, a doctor treated her wounds and gave her 
a large dose of antibiotics. Guz spent the rest of her captivity in a 
room with her partner, who was also badly beaten. On the sixth day, 
they, along with one other captive, were exchanged for three captured 
insurgents held by Ukraine government forces and set free.
 
Two-and-a-half months after Guz’s release, the scars on her hands and 
arms were still plainly visible. She and Menshakov both lodged 
complaints with the Ukrainian security services for the purposes of 
future prosecution of those responsible.
 
Detentions and Cruel and Degrading Treatment of Journalists
 
Since April 2014, numerous journalists, both Ukrainian and foreign, have 
experienced physical violence, detention, harassment, intimidation, and 
death threats from insurgent forces, according to media reports and 
information Human Rights Watch collected from the journalists, including 
12 cases based on first-hand interviews. In some cases the violence 
against journalists has amounted to what appears to be cruel and 
degrading treatment. Three of these cases are described below.
 
Serhiy Lefter
 
In mid-April, insurgent forces who controlled Sloviansk held Serhiy 
Lefter, a 24-year-old Ukrainian freelance journalist, captive for 17 
days, beating and threatening him repeatedly.
 
At about 7 p.m. on April 15, Lefter, on assignment in the center of 
Sloviansk, was talking on his cell phone when two men approached, one 
masked and both armed with guns, and asked why Lefter was talking on the 
phone. When Lefter responded that he was a journalist, the men took him 
to the city council building, where several insurgents interrogated him, 
searched his backpack, and demanded his laptop password. They accused 
him of being a spy, of gathering data about firing positions, and of 
involvement with the far-right Ukrainian nationalist group, Right 
Sector. One of the men in charge told Lefter they would take him hostage.
 
Lefter spent the night there. The next day, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, then 
the self-proclaimed people’s mayor of Sloviansk, ordered him to be taken 
to the SBU building. When Ponomarev himself arrived at the SBU, he 
accused Lefter of being a spy and punched him in the jaw.
 
Lefter said that on his third or fourth day in captivity, the insurgents 
interrogated him from about 11 p.m. to 3 or 4 a.m. Judging from other 
voices he could hear, he estimated that four to five other people were 
being questioned in the same room. When Lefter told the insurgents that 
he was a journalist, a man hit him on the right side of his face several 
times, dislodging his lower left front tooth and causing hematomas and 
massive swelling. Someone pushed Lefter to the floor and kicked him in 
the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him.
 
The interrogators dragged Lefter across the floor and at one point 
burned his right hand with a cigarette. Human Rights Watch, interviewing 
him four months later, photographed a small, circular scar from the 
burn. Lefter said that those questioned in the same room included Yuri 
Popravka, whose body with marks of torture was found in Sloviansk on 
April 19, together with the body of Vladimir Rybak, a pro-Kiev 
politician. He said that during his interrogation, he could hear the 
other captives screaming:
 
They would beat information out of them to get answers to how did they 
get here and which checkpoints did they come through. I could hear 
kicking and punching. I heard a few people being burned with cigarettes. 
I also heard them threaten to cut off sex organs. I could hear them 
taking someone’s pants down. They threatened me with it too. One of the 
prisoners seemed to be totally covered in tape, and it seemed that when 
they cut the tape they were cutting the detainee, because I heard him 
scream.
 
On April 26 or 27 the guards found out that one of the detainees had 
managed to sneak out a letter. They questioned Lefter and his cellmates, 
Artem Deinega and Vitaliy Kovalchuk, all night and beat Lefter on the 
legs with a truncheon. On May 2 at about 1 p.m., the insurgents told 
Lefter he was free and released him.
 
Simon Ostrovsky, VICE
 
On April 21, armed insurgents captured a VICE News reporter,Simon 
Ostrovsky, in Sloviansk and held him for three days, beating him 
repeatedly. Ostrovsky told Human Rights Watch that this was related to 
his documentary series, Russian Roulette, in Ukraine and the 
“inconvenient questions” he kept asking at news conferences of the 
self-proclaimed authorities in Sloviansk.
 
Ostrovsky and four other journalists were stopped in their car on April 
21 at an insurgent checkpoint close to their hotel in Sloviansk. An 
insurgent shined a flashlight in Ostrovsky’s face, compared it to a 
photograph, and yelled, “I got him, I got him, it’s him!”
 
Armed men pulled the journalists from the car and searched, threatened, 
and questioned them about their work. They let the other four go but 
took Ostrovsky to the Sloviansk SBU building. A group of men in military 
fatigues led him to a courtyard behind the building, blindfolded him, 
searched him once again, took away all of his belongings, and tied his 
hands behind his back. Then they led him down to the basement and threw 
him on the floor.
 
A group of men came into the room and beat him, kicking and punching him 
in the ribs and smacking him on the head and ears. The beating continued 
intermittently from approximately 1:30 a.m. until daylight, he said. 
When he was not being beaten he was left blindfolded, sitting in the 
corner of a filthy basement room with damp walls and water dripping from 
the ceiling.
 
The next day, the insurgents put other detainees in the same room, at 
one point there were as many as eight. Among them were a Ukrainian 
journalist and his driver, a member of the local legislature, a local 
resident captured for attempting to set up a web camera across the 
street from the SBU building, and a Euromaidan activist whom insurgents 
accused of being associated with the Right Sector and who suffered a 
very bad beating in captivity. Some had already spent more than two 
weeks in captivity and based on their own experiences, warned Ostrovsky 
that he should expect a “real” interrogation during which he would 
probably be severely beaten.
 
At one point, a man took Ostrovsky, blindfolded, to another room. 
Several men asked him for his computer password, beat him on the arm 
with a truncheon when he refused to provide it, and asked whether he 
worked for the CIA, the FBI, or the Kiev government, and whether he was 
a spy for the Right Sector. This interrogation continued for about ten 
minutes, after which the men left Ostrovsky alone in the room for the night.
 
Ostrovsky’s hands were bound for his first two days in captivity; the 
beatings stopped after a day and a half.
 
He said his first night in captivity was the roughest:
 
It is an initiation procedure which involves violence. That first night 
they want to terrify you so that you are cooperative. They want to make 
sure you sit when they tell you, look down on the floor, do everything 
they tell you to do. They want to break your resolve to resist, to 
punish you, to teach you a lesson.
 
Throughout Ostrovsky’s captivity, DPR representatives made contradictory 
statements to the press regarding Ostrovsky’s fate and whereabouts. At 
about 5 p.m. an insurgent gave Ostrovsky his belongings and told him 
that he was free to go.
 
Pavel Kanygin, Novaya Gazeta
 
Pavel Kanygin, special correspondentfor the Russian independent outlet 
Novaya Gazeta spent around 12 hours in insurgent captivity from May 11 
to 12 in Donetsk region. He was reporting on the May 11 unofficial 
referendum on the independence ofthe self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s 
Republic. Before his abduction, Kanygin published a series of comments 
on social media describing, among other things, the persecution of 
officials who did not support the referendum.
 
Kanygin said he was in a café in Artyomovsk with Stefan Scholl, a 
correspondent for the German newspaper Südwest Presse, when four men 
approached them at about 9 p.m., demanding that Kanygin explain his 
coverage of the referendum. They took both men to the town’s main 
square, where a mob of armed insurgents and local residents had already 
gathered. Armed insurgents surrounded Kanygin, accusing him of being a 
spy and demanding that he disclose his ties to the Right Sector, the 
SBU, or the CIA. When Scholl tried to intervene, they threatened to 
shoot him on the spot.
 
Unarmed people pushed Kanygin to the ground and started kicking and 
punching him, but an armed insurgent ordered them to stop, saying they 
would take Kanygin to Sloviansk to “figure things out in the SBU 
basement.” The man, whom people called “Bashnya” (Tower) or “Leonidych” 
(apparently, his patronymic), twisted Kanygin’s arms, pushed him into a 
car, and told him to sit still and keep his head on his knees. When 
Kanygin asked the man what they wanted, “Bashnya” elbowed him in the 
jaw, breaking a tooth. On the way, “Bashnya” and the driver discussed 
where to take Kanygin, contemplating whether to exchange him “for some 
of our boys” or to kill him in the woods.
 
Eventually they brought Kanygin to an insurgent base in Volodarka, near 
Sloviansk. Several armed men led Kanygin into a tent, took his laptop 
and his backpack, and ordered him to strip. The insurgents asked Kanygin 
for the passwords to his cellphone and laptop and hit him in the face 
when he refused. When one of the armed men grabbed Kanygin and 
threatened to break his finger, the journalist gave his password. The 
insurgents logged in and went through Kanygin’s files and photographs, 
asking him questions.
 
Kanygin told Human Rights Watch he heard insurgents bragging on the 
phone about “catching a good target for exchange” and getting 
instructions. Then they threw him on the floor of a vehicle and drove to 
another camp with insurgents from Horlivka. This group was under orders 
to transfer Kanygin to Sloviansk. However, they eventually took all the 
cash Kanygin had, 39,000 rubles (US$1,130) and allowed him to call 
Scholl, who offered to give all the cash he could pull together, nearly 
$1,000. They told Kanygin the money was “not ransom but your 
contribution to our war.”
 
Scholl told Human Rights Watch that at 2 a.m. he received a call from 
Kanygin asking him to pay the insurgents for his release. Kanygin’s 
captors met with Scholl at his hotel in Artyomovsk and took the cash 
from him. Scholl expected Kanygin to be handed over right away, but 
instead the insurgents drove Kanygin to Horlivka, switched cars, 
apparently drugged him, and finally took him to Hotel Liverpul in Donetsk.
 
Kanygin told Human Rights Watch:
 
I actually don’t remember what happened after Horlivka. They made me 
drink some mineral water … and 15 minutes later I just nodded off in the 
car. When I came to I was on a bed in a hotel room, fully dressed, and a 
clerk was shaking me awake saying it was already noon. He said two men 
brought me into the hotel lobby in the early morning and asked for a 
room. He said I was walking between them as they held on to me and 
looked a bit strange…. It was more like a coma than normal sleep. I 
suspect they put something in that water.
 
I called my editor. It’s clear that I was released so soon only because 
Scholl had gotten in touch with my colleagues, and then some high-level 
Russian officials intervened on my behalf. The Horlivka men decided to 
make some fast money and simply took whatever cash [we] had. A few hours 
after I came to, a DPR rep … called me to apologize for the 
“misunderstanding” … and promised that my computer, phone, and money 
would be returned to me. But this never happened.
 
Detention and Torture of Religious Activists
 
Armed insurgents have also captured, held, and tortured active members 
of non-Russian Orthodox religious groups. In its July 15, 2014 report on 
the human rights situation in Ukraine, the Office of the High 
Commissioner for Human Rights noted that “a Protestant pastor and his 
wife were abducted and held in Druzhkivka (Donetsk region)” by insurgent 
forces.
 
Also in July Anton Heraschenko, an advisor to Ukraine’s interior 
minister, stated that a mass grave found in Sloviansk contained the 
bodies of four members of the Church of the Transfiguration: Albert and 
Ruvim Pavenko (sons of the church’s pastor), as well as two deacons, 
Viktor Brodarsky and Volodymyr Velichko. On July 8, insurgents had 
broken into the church during services and abducted the four.
 
Serhiy Kosyak
 
Human Rights Watch spoke with an evangelical pastor from Donetsk, Serhiy 
Kosyak, who described how insurgent forces had detained and tortured him 
and other religious activists.
 
Beginning in March Kosyak coordinated daily ecumenical “prayer marathons 
for peace and unity” in the center of Donetsk. He said that from April 
through August, insurgents had taken 12 of the participants captive, 
held them at bases in Donetsk, Makyivka, and other towns for periods 
ranging from several hours to several weeks, beat and threatened them, 
and subjected at least three to mock executions. At least four were 
released for ransom and one remains disappeared. The others, to the best 
of Kosyak’s knowledge, were freed without payment. Kosyak had spoken 
directly with all of those freed following their release.
 
Insurgents seized Kosyak himself on May 24. That day, when Kosyak went 
to the “prayer marathon,” he saw that the prayer tent had been destroyed 
and went to the city administration building to consult with 
acquaintances in the DPR about it. Another DPR representative jumped on 
him, yelling to others, “This man is a troublemaker! He says that DPR is 
sinful, that God disapproves of separatism! He’s with Right Sector!” 
Several people then severely beat Kosyak, eventually throwing him into a 
room on the eighth or the ninth floor and threatening to take him to the 
SBU basement in Sloviansk. A short time later, two former members of 
Kosyak’s church entered the room, said he was “harmless,” and convinced 
the others to let him go. Kosyak said:
 
I spent four hours there. They beat me with truncheons and hammers. I 
had a split lip, and my left arm was fractured. My left side was all 
back and blue.
 
On August 17, when Kosyak was away, armed DPR representatives forced 
their way into Kosyak’s home in Donetsk looking for him. They searched 
the house thoroughly, found nothing except family belongings and 
religious literature, and left.
 
Kosyak also told Human Rights Watch that insurgents on August 3 had 
abducted another of his congregationists, Yevheniy Frantsuk, held him in 
a trench for three weeks, and released him on August 23. Kosyak said 
Frantsuk had not been tortured.
 
Alexander Khomchenko
 
Kosyak also gave a detailed account of how armed insurgents detained and 
tortured Alexander Khomchenko, a member of his church and deputy 
coordinator of the “prayer marathon,” and detained two participants, 
Valeriy Yakubenko and Roksolana Shvaika.
 
On August 8 Khomchenko was coordinating the daily prayer session while 
Kosyak was away. The session began at 6 p.m. in the city center, as 
usual. Several armed insurgents approached the group at about 6:30 p.m., 
said they were from the DPR, and asked who was in charge. Khomchenko 
said he was, and the insurgents detained him, Yakubenko, and Shvaika and 
took them to the SBU building. There, it appeared that the insurgents 
mistook Khomchenko for Kosyak. When bringing in the three detainees one 
of the captors yelled to the insurgents in the building, “We got Kosyak!”
 
The insurgents interrogated their captives for three hours at the SBU, 
together and separately. They soon released Shvaika, berating her for 
getting involved with a “sect,” and transferred the two men to an 
insurgent base at the conscription office in Makyivka. The insurgents 
released Yakubenko the next day.
 
They held and tortured Khomchenko for three days, then released him. 
Khomchenko had volunteered as a driver to evacuate people from areas 
affected by the armed conflict, and when he was detained he had several 
receipts from gas stations across Donetsk region. The receipts made the 
insurgents suspect he was a spy for the Ukrainian forces. Kosyak said:
 
They started beating Sasha [short for Alexander] in Makyivka…. Sasha 
told me they also would watch while they would force some prisoners to 
beat other prisoners. If they thought the kicks and punches weren’t 
strong enough they would then beat the slackers. Sasha’s body was all 
black and blue, and his face was beaten to pulp. During his three days 
in Makiyvka they staged his execution three times. Twice they shot above 
his head. And the third time, they shot at him at point-blank range, but 
the gun was not loaded. He is now recovering from his injuries.
 
Human Rights Watch examined a photograph of Khomchenko taken two weeks 
after his release from captivity. His entire upper body was still 
extensively bruised.
 
After the detention of Khomchenko, Yakubenko, and Shvaika, the prayer 
marathon participants stopped conducting public sessions, convening them 
instead in secret places.
 
-- 
Namib
.....
Trost ist ein absurdes Wort:
Wer nicht verzweifeln kann, der muß nicht leben
(J.W. v. Goethe)

 
Non ho letto tutto, e faresti bene a riassumere.
 
Cmq. e' quello che il Battaglione Vostok faceva gia' in Cecenia, e che e' stato documentato a lungo dalla Politkovkaya in un suo libro, prima di finire ammazzata, probabilmente dagli stessi.
 
Agli italiani dovrebbe ricordare la Banda Carita' o la Banda Koch, per i pochi che sanno ancora di Resistenza.
 
Al di la' delle torture Bxl ancora si rifiuta di capire che la guerra all'Ucraina e' gia' guerra all'Europa.
 
Questo il dato politico. Se non si affronta il problema oggi con le armi, ce lo si ritrovera' domani lungo tutta la frontiera con la Russia.
 
La guerra civile non si cura con le sanzioni.
 

 La guerra civile non si cura con le sanzioni.
 
A mio avviso, servirebbe un atto dimostrativo mirato alle *cose*, che 
indicasse la chiara volontï¿œ di "vedere" il bluff di un nemico 
militarmente inferiore. Poi, via Putin (sotto processo), e si tratta con 
*ciï¿œ* che gli oligarchi cannibali avranno risparmiato.
 
-- 
Namib
.....
Trost ist ein absurdes Wort:
Wer nicht verzweifeln kann, der muï¿œ nicht leben
(J.W. v. Goethe)

 
 
Peggio dei peggiori incubi di Goering.
 
Complimenti camerata Namib.
 
Vi trovo un tantino andati di testa voi due nazisti a comando.
 

 Peggio dei peggiori incubi di Goering.
 
Specie dopo una peperonata molto aggressiva :)


 Specie dopo una peperonata molto aggressiva :)
 
Ma no. Era un morfinomane, non aveva certo bisogno di peperoni.
 
 
fe...@delenda.net
 
-- 
e cos� siete ebrei, credete in allah, non volete le
trasfusioni di sangue, dite che ges� era un marziano
e siete contenti che se fate ammodino, vi reincarnerete
in una vacca sacra per cavalcare le praterie del nirvana
a fianco di Odino, eh ? E BRAVI! bravi, s�! (Don Zauker)

 
Una guerra si affronta come una guerra, cioe' con la dissuasione militare, e se non basta con l'intervento.
 
Gli USA hanno due bombardieri B-2 che potrebbero spazzare in una notte i cento carri russi presenti nel donbass.
 
Non credo che sia un caso che Putin ha ricordato che la Russia e' una potenza nucleare.
 
Percio' l'altra opzione e' armare l'Ucraina in modo altrettanto furtivo,, e velocizzare il suo accesso alla NATO.
 
Ma i. problema non e' solo l'isolazionismo americano, ma anche la cattiva volonta' di Italia e Germania. Vedremo nei prossimi giorni.
 
Certo che se il conflitto tracima in Polonia o nei baltici poi ci si pentira' di non aver fatto il minimo, quando si era in tempo.
 

 Ma no. Era un morfinomane
 
Si sa, i nazi sono vili: sempre ripieghi...


 
Pensaci, la narrativa di Putin, che questi servi adottano, non ha tanto per effetto di calunniare l'Ucraina e giustificare l'invasione, ma soprattutto di bloccare qualsiasi intervento della Germania.
Se la Germania che e' pacifista, vedendosi invadere un vicino, decidesse di prestar man forte, verrebbe immediatamente tacciata di nazismo da Putin, e screditata internazionalmente.
 
E' questo il busillis, il ricatto bem temperato di Putin, a cui pure la Ger. dovra' far fronte, Eppure superarlo come il Giappone sta facendo con la Cina, tessendo alleanze difensive.