Montenegro294, Netherlands295, Poland296, Portugal297, Russia298, Serbia299, Spain,300,
Sweden301, Switzerland302, Turkey,303 and the Ukraine304.
6.2.1.1. Illustrative cases
Bosnia and Herzegovina
During a 2015 visit, the CPT delegation received repeated allegations of ill-treatment being
used by police officers to extract confessions, and the means employed in several such
instances included hand-held striking weapons.305 For example, one person alleged that after
being arrested and taken to Bijeljina Police Station, five police officers inflicted repeated
baton blows, kicks and punches on him and told him to confess.306 During the same visit, the
CPT delegation also heard allegations of ill-treatment using batons in prison establishments.
On 26 April 2015 in Banja Luka Prison, members of the prison’s intervention unit allegedly
dragged a prisoner on remand from his cell and beat him with batons while he lay on the
ground. After being beaten again on the ground floor, he was stripped of his clothing and
placed in a padded cell wearing only his underwear for two days. The prison doctor recorded
the following injuries in his medical file: “reddishness in the lower back and three parallel
tram-line hematomas 6cm x 4cm in size”.307
Ukraine
Ukrainian police have used batons abusively in the perpetration of numerous acts of torture
and other ill-treatment, prior to and during the armed conflict within the country. The CPT
has reported that rape with batons is one of the methods of “severe physical ill-treatment
and/or torture” that has allegedly been inflicted on those deprived of their liberty in certain
places of detention in Ukraine.308 On 17 June 2012, Mikhail Belikov was approached by
police officers from Petrovskiy District police station in Donetsk for drinking in public. He
was beaten before being taken to the Petrovskiy District sub-police station. While in police
custody, a police officer allegedly raped Mr. Belikov with a police baton while three other
officers held him down. He suffered serious internal injuries as a result and required a
temporary colostomy.309
294
CPT (22 May 2014) op.cit.
CPT (11 November 2016) op.cit., paragraph 85.
296
CPT (25 June 2014) op.cit., paragraph 16.
297
Amnesty International (23 February 2016) op.cit., p. 297.
298
Human Rights Watch, Russia: Investigate Police Use of Force Against Peaceful Protesters, 8 May 2012.
299
CPT (24 June 2016) op.cit., paragraph 46.
300
CPT (9 April 2015) op.cit., paragraph 51.
301
CPT (17 February 2016) op.cit., paragraphs 11 & 12.
302
CPT, Report to the Swiss Federal Counsel on the visit to Switzerland carried out by the CPT from 13 to 24
April 2015, 23 June 2016.
303
CPT, Report to the Turkish Government on the visit to Turkey carried out by the CPT from 9 to 21 June
2013, 15 January 2015, paragraphs 18 & 50; See also: Physicians for Human Rights, Contempt for Freedom:
State Use of Tear Gas as a Weapon and Attacks on Medical Personnel in Turkey, September 2013, p. 14.
304
CPT (19 June 2017) op.cit., paragraph 15; CPT (13 January 2015) op.cit., pp.12-14, 16.
305
CPT (5 July 2016) op.cit.
306
CPT (5 July 2016) op.cit., paragraph 14.
307
CPT (5 July 2016) op.cit., paragraph 84.
308
CPT (29 April 2015) op.cit., paragraph35.
309
Amnesty International, Ukraine: Submission to the United Nations Human Rights Committee for the 108th
session of the Human Rights Committee (8-26 July 2013), June 2013, , p. 6.
295
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