Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 06/07/2023; Author: Mladen Lakić
One web portal published an article in which the UN report on the detention of civilians during the Russian invasion of Ukraine was manipulatively presented as an accusation that Ukrainian forces are carrying out widespread torture of civilians.
On June 28, 2023, web portal Nulta tacka published an article with the following title:
The UN reports widespread torture of civilians by Ukrainian security forces
The article states that the United Nations (UN) in its report documented a significant increase in cases of law violations committed by Ukrainian security forces. The report refers to the period since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which in this article is called a “special military operation”.
The United Nations has noted a significant increase in law violations by Ukrainian security forces since the start of Russia’s special military operation, the UN Office for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a report on Tuesday.
“Since February 24, 2022, OHCHR has documented a significant increase in violations of the right to freedom and security of person by the Ukrainian security forces. Of the total number of such cases, OHCHR documented 75 cases of 92 arbitrary detentions of civilians (17 women, 57 men and 1 boy), some of which were also enforced disappearances, mostly by law enforcement authorities or the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, stated the report.
What is really stated in the UN report?
On June 27, 2023, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published a report on cases of detention of civilians in Ukraine. The report was published under the title “Detention of civilians in the context of the armed attack by the Russian Federation against Ukraine”.
It covers 47 pages about the detention of civilians by Russian forces (Chapter IV, page 9) and the detention of civilians by Ukrainian forces (Chapter V, page 27).
Since February 24, 2022, the OHCHR has documented a significant increase in violations of the right to freedom and security of persons committed by the Ukrainian security forces, the report and article on Nulta tacka stated. The article, however, omitted part of the report on violations committed by Russian forces.
The report states that OHCHR documented “an increase in conflict-related detentions in parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions that were under the control of Russian-linked armed groups and in the Russian-occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine (Crimea) since 2014″ (page 9, item 35).
OHCHR documented 864 cases of arbitrary detention committed by Russian forces in the period from February 24, 2022 to May 23, 2023 (page 9, item 36).
Photo: Screenshot/OHCHR. Arbitrary detentions on the side of the Russian Federation documented by OHCHR from 24 February 2022 to 23 May 2023.
In the same period, 75 such cases committed by Ukrainian forces were recorded (page 27, item 99).
Photo: Screenshot/OHCHR. Arbitrary detentions on the Ukrainian side documented by OHCHR from 24 February 2022 to 23 May 2023.
These numbers, as explained, are not for comparison, given that Russia does not cooperate with the OHCHR and did not allow access to the detainees.
OHCHR emphasizes that the Government of Ukraine has continued to provide OHCHR with full and confidential access to conflict detainees in places of detention, with the exception of the case of 87 civilian Russian sailors detained on their ship in Izmail. The Government of Ukraine has also engaged in a constructive dialogue with the OHCHR regarding violations attributed to its actors. The Russian Federation has not granted OHCHR any access to detainees in the conflict, despite repeated requests. This lack of access also means that the number and nature of cases should not be comparable.
StopFake, a Ukrainian fact-checking web portal, analyzed similar claims that the UN report “accused” Ukraine of torturing civilian detainees in secret detention facilities, which were shared in Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking languages. In the analysis published on June 27, 2023. StopFake states that it is a manipulative presentation of the findings of the UN report, considering that the analyzed publications do not mention parts of the report that refer to the actions of Russian forces.
In accordance with the stated facts, we assess the claim suggesting that the UN reported that Ukrainian forces are carrying out widespread torture, i.e. detention, as manipulation of facts and biased reporting. The report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights states that there has been an increase in cases of human rights violations committed by Ukrainian forces, but the report includes data on the increase in such detentions on the Russian side as well.