Vladimir Putin moves to withdraw Russia from European torture treaty
Vladimir Putin is seeking to withdraw Russia from the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture, submitting a bill to the State Duma to denounce the treaty.
The move comes after the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) said in late 2024 that Russia refused to cooperate with its inquiry into the death of Alexei Navalny. The denunciation will only take effect a year after the State Duma approves the law, the BBC reports.
An explanatory note accompanying the bill claims Russia is already effectively excluded from the CPT's work, after the Council of Europe reportedly blocked the election of a new Russian representative when the last one's term expired in December 2023.
But the BBC understands that Russian authorities only remembered this fact in the wake of the committee's public statement in November 2024 about Russia's refusal to cooperate, which included not providing information about the death of Alexei Navalny in a penal colony.
The CPT, from which Russia is severing ties under the proposed legislation, has the unique ability to have unrestricted access to any place of detention. This includes not just prisons, but also juvenile detention centres, police stations, centres for illegal immigrants, psychiatric hospitals, and homes for the elderly and people with disabilities. It also includes places where prisoners of war are held—if those places are not "regularly and genuinely" visited by the International Red Cross.
A state is obliged to grant the committee's representatives access to these institutions and allow them to speak privately with the people held there. Following its visits, the committee provides the state with information and recommendations.
Translation by Iurie Tataru
