New YORKcTypeface:> Russia was accused of the "systematic” torture of domestic critics and enemy soldiers in a report issued on Tuesday by a UN human rights expert.
The investigation reveals how "torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment are used as state-sanctioned tools for systemic oppression in the Russian Federation,” the report says. The document was written by Mariana Katzarova, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Russia, who noted that it is "not a new phenomenon” for Moscow to engage in torture.
But she said in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale of invasion of Ukraine in 2022, "it has become a concerted strategy, a tool for stifling the civic space, for silencing all anti-war critics or dissidents - anybody who disagrees with the policies of the Russian authorities and their so-called special military operation.” (DPA)