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Amnesty International Report 2017/18

to donors’ payment delays. The cuts led to 

riots and protests by refugees in Nyumanzi 

settlement in Adjumani district.

UKRAINE

Ukraine

Head of state: Petro Poroshenko

Head of government: Volodymyr Hroysman

The investigation into the Security Service 

of Ukraine (SBU) for its alleged secret 

prisons failed to make any progress. Law 

enforcement officials continued to use 

torture and other ill-treatment.

The Ukrainian authorities increased 

pressure on their critics and independent 

NGOs, including journalists and anti-

corruption activists. The authorities 

launched criminal investigations and 

passed laws aimed at restricting the rights 

to freedom of expression and freedom of 

association, among other things.

The de facto authorities in the separatist-

controlled territories continued to 

unlawfully detain and imprison their critics. 

In November, the de facto Supreme Court 

in Donetsk ordered a man to be put to 

death. In Russian-occupied Crimea, critics 

of the authorities faced intimidation, 

harassment and criminal prosecution.

The LGBTI Pride march was held in the 

capital Kyiv, under effective police 

protection. The number of attacks on LGBTI 

events rose across the country. The 

government failed to adequately address 

sexual and domestic violence. The 

authorities announced that Ukraine was 

freezing all arms supplies to South Sudan.

BACKGROUND

Social discontent continued to grow. 

Mounting economic problems, the slow pace 

of reforms and pervasive corruption sparked 

regular protests in Kyiv that occasionally 

turned violent. Some of the protests brought 

together several hundred people. In April, the 

World Bank reported that the Ukrainian 

economy had stopped contracting, projected 

a 2% growth for 2017, and urged further 

reforms. On 14 June, the EU lifted its visa 

requirements for Ukrainian citizens. The 

government adopted wide-ranging medical 

and educational reforms, which for the first 

time included human rights as part of the 

future school curriculum.

In eastern Ukraine, the separatist and 

government forces continued fighting, in 

violation of the 2015 ceasefire agreement. 

Casualties among the forces and civilians 

continued to grow, and according to the UN 

had reached 10,225 dead by 15 August, 

including 2,505 civilians. On 27 December, 

the two sides exchanged prisoners, releasing 

a total of 380 people.

According to the September report of the 

UN Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, 

“increased levels of poverty and 

unemployment coupled with record-high food 

prices have affected the lives of 3.8 million 

people in the conflict-affected zones, in 

addition to daily hardships caused by the 

armed hostilities and related policies imposed 

by all sides.” Laws introduced in previous 

years further impeded access to social rights 

and pensions for people living in the conflict-

affected areas.

Crimea remained under Russian 

occupation. Russia continued to deny 

international human rights mechanisms 

access to the peninsula.

TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT

Members of law enforcement agencies 

continued to use torture and other ill-

treatment, and committed other human 

rights violations; there was continued 

impunity for past and ongoing violations of 

international humanitarian law.

On 15 August, the SBU apprehended Daria 

Mastikasheva, a Ukrainian citizen resident in 

Russia who was visiting her mother in 

Ukraine, and held her incommunicado for 

two days. She was accused of treason and 

illegal weapons possession. Photos taken by 

her lawyer of her outside the court showed 

signs of beatings and possible torture by SBU 

officers. Her lawyer also reported that she 

was issued with threats targeting her mother 

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and son, until she agreed to read out a self-

incriminating statement on camera. At the 

end of the year she was still in detention 

awaiting trial.

On 16 November, the head of the State 

Investigation Bureau (SIB), a stand-alone 

agency created to undertake investigations 

independently of other law enforcement 

agencies, was finally appointed. However, the 

SIB was still not fully staffed and unable to 

begin its work by the end of the year.

CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE

In a report published in February, the UN 

Human Rights Monitoring Mission to Ukraine 

documented cases of conflict-related sexual 

violence, and criticized Ukraine’s justice 

system for failing its survivors and highlighted 

a lack of adequate care and counselling. The 

majority of the documented cases concerned 

sexual violence against men and women who 

had been detained by government forces or 

armed groups.

DETENTION

The Chief Military Prosecutor’s investigation 

into the allegations of secret detention by the 

SBU in eastern Ukraine was ineffective. 

Evidence published in 2016 by international 

NGOs showing the existence of this practice 

was largely ignored by the authorities.

DETENTIONS OF CIVILIANS IN THE CONFLICT ZONE

On 27 April, the UN Subcommittee on 

Prevention of Torture (SPT) published its 

report on its 2016 visit to Ukraine. The report 

noted that the SBU had obstructed the SPT’s 

mandate by denying it access to some 

facilities, forcing it to suspend a visit in May 

2016. When the SPT resumed the visit in 

September, it “was left with the clear 

impression that some rooms and spaces had 

been cleared in order to suggest that they 

had not been used for detention”. The 

facilities in question, particularly in the city 

Kharkiv, had allegedly been used as secret 

prisons, and their inmates moved to another 

unofficial facility before it was opened to 

visitors.

1

 The SPT was denied any access to 

detention facilities in the territories controlled 

by the self-proclaimed, Russian-backed 

Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and 

Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) in eastern 

Ukraine.

The de facto authorities in the DNR and 

LNR continued to detain and imprison critics 

and individuals suspected of supporting 

Ukraine. On 4 May, a de facto court in 

Donetsk sentenced well-known academic 

Ihor Kozlovsky to two years and eight months 

in prison under trumped-up charges of 

weapons possession. Ihor Kozlovsky had 

been in detention since January 2016 and 

was released on 27 December 2017 in a 

prisoner exchange.

On 31 January, Russian activists and 

performance artists Seroe Fioletovoe and 

Viktoriya Miroshnichenko were held in 

incommunicado detention for two weeks after 

crossing into the DNR-controlled territory. 

Following an international campaign for their 

release on 14 February, the de facto Ministry 

of State Security (MGB) escorted them to the 

Russian border and released them.

On 2 June, freelance journalist Stanislav 

Aseev, who had been reporting anonymously 

from the DNR, was subjected to enforced 

disappearance in Donetsk. For weeks, the de 

facto authorities denied that they were 

holding him; on 16 July, a member of the 

MGB told his mother that her son was in their 

custody and accused of espionage. Stanislav 

Aseev remained in detention and under 

investigation at the end of the year.

FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION

Civil society activists and members of NGOs, 

particularly those working on corruption, were 

regularly harassed and subjected to violence. 

These incidents were often not effectively 

investigated, and members of the authorities, 

including security services in some instances, 

were widely suspected to have instigated 

them.

A law adopted in March obliged anti-

corruption activists, including members of 

NGOs and journalists, to file annual income 

declarations – something that state officials 

have to do – or face criminal charges and 

imprisonment.

In July, the Presidential Administration 

proposed two draft laws that sought to 

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