Allegations of arbitrary detention and torture of an Belarusian opposition activist due to his political involvement

Facts

The author of the communication is the mother of the victim (Sergei Ryzhov) who is a national of Belarus. The author’s son is an opposition figure in Belarus who unsuccessfully tried to run as a candidate in the 2010 presidential elections. In 2013, he was detained by the police for being intoxicated in public and as a result, was taken to a sobering-up centre. The author claims that at the centre her son was subjected to torture by several police officers by restraining, punching kicking, strangulating him with a bed-sheet and also breaking his finger. Due to these injuries, the Vitebsk City Investigation Committee opened an inquiry into the matter. However, the committee refused to initiate a criminal investigation due to the absence of corpus delicti in the actions of the police. However, this refusal was quashed and the case was returned for further investigation by the deputy head of the committee. In 2013, the committee again refused to initiate a criminal investigation. On further inquiries, it was concluded that another detainee had punched and kicked the author’s son and the police had to restrain the author due to his violent behaviour for which the author’s son was sentenced to an administrative fine. In a separate case, in 2014, he was subjected to 15 days of administrative arrest for petty hooliganism. Again in 2015, Mr. Ryzhov was arrested on suspicion of hooliganism and committing acts of a sexual character. For these acts, Mr. Ryzhov was found guilty and sentenced to six and a half years in prison. This decision was upheld all the way up to the Supreme Court.

The author claims that Mr. Ryzhov’s rights articles 2 (1) and (3) (a), 7, 8 (2), 9 (1), 10 (1), 12 (1), 14 (1), 17 (1), 19 (2), 25 and 26 of the Covenant on the grounds that Mr. Ryzhov’s initial detention was politically motivated and hence he was also subjected to severe beatings. Further, it was claimed that other criminal charges were brought against him as he continued in his retaliation and that the trial was not impartial and was closed to the public.

Admissibility

The Committee was of the view that only the claim under article 7 of the Covenant was sufficiently substantiated for the purposes of admissibility. With respect to other claims, the Committee observed that the material before it did not allow it to conclude that the examination of the evidence and questioning of witnesses by the court reached the threshold for arbitrariness in the evaluation of the evidence or amounted to a denial of justice and hence finding them inadmissible.

Merits

The Committee noted that an inquiry into the alleged beatings of Mr. Ryzhov began shortly after he sought medical assistance following his release from a sobering-up centre in November 2013. Despite several inquiries conducted between 2013 and 2017, the Vitebsk City Investigation Committee concluded that there was no enough evidence to open a criminal investigation into the claim of torture. The author did not provide any documentation regarding the overturning of these refusals by senior officers or the prosecutor’s office. Additionally, during an administrative trial in January 2014 related to the incident at the sobering-up centre, video footage showed Mr. Ryzhov exhibiting aggressive behaviour towards police officers. Consequently, the Committee concluded that based on the information provided, there was no evidence of a violation of Mr. Ryzhov’s rights under article 7 of the Covenant.