The decision to withdraw from the convention was made on October 30 last year and formally took effect a year later, on Sunday, November 1 this year. According to the Council of Europe, inspections of prisons in Russia have not been possible since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Council has been alerted to “a large number of testimonies of alleged torture and ill-treatment in places of detention carried out by Russian agents” in occupied territories of Ukraine and in Russia, the Council wrote in a press release.
Russia ratified the Convention against Torture in 1998 and has been bound by its provisions, which allow for independent prison inspections and prohibit torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
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