International
The World Organization Against Torture denounces possible crimes against humanity in Russia against Ukrainian civilians
Arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearances, sexual violence and other abuses by Russian forces against civilians in Ukrainian territories can constitute crimes against humanity, denounces a report published by the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT).
The documentation of these practices between February and October 2022 in more than 20 detention centers by the OMCT together with the Ukrainian NGOs Media Initiative for Human Rights and the ZMINA Human Rights Center shows that “they are not isolated incidents” and are part of a “deliberate policy of torture.”
“These crimes reach the threshold of torture and persecution of a large political group, so they can constitute crimes against humanity,” the OMCT advisor for Europe and Central Asia, Maryia Kvitsinskaya, said in a statement.
The investigation presented on Thursday is based on interviews with victims and witnesses of 63 cases – 38 of torture and 25 of other ill-treatment – in the Ukrainian regions of Kiev, Chernigov, Zaporiyia, Donetsk, Kharkov and Kherson.
The OMCT denounces that after the control of some territories of these regions in 2022, the Russian army and special services began to persecute a large group of civilians who were loyal to Ukraine, opposed the occupation and had a negative attitude towards Russian troops, politicians or ideology.
The document speaks in this sense of “common signals” that were sought by the Russian military during the inspection procedures to identify Ukrainian citizens as “suspispious.”
They included, for example, the consumption of Ukrainian news or music, contact with relatives or acquaintances who served the country’s troops, donations in favor of the Army or photos with the national flag of Ukraine, the United States or the European Union, among others.
Those responsible for the report also warn that, as the invasion progressed, the Russian Army began to interpret these signs more broadly, targeting an increasing group of civilians.
This meant that, in addition to the people who were against the Russian occupation, many others were wrongly accused, representing 18 of the 38 cases documented in the report (48%).
In addition, among the tortured people interviewed there were also individuals from groups identified as vulnerable, including three women, five elderly people or a person with serious chronic diseases.
According to the report, all documented detention conditions violated the rules of international humanitarian law and human rights, with 28 of the 38 cases (73%) in which the conditions were “so deficient that they were equivalent to torture.”
Most of the victims were confined in cells in overcrowded conditions, in which there was hardly any room to sleep, often without natural light and located in very cold facilities in winter and very hot in summer.
In addition, in all the documented cases that are described as torture in this report, the victims were simultaneously subjected to multiple forms of physical and psychological abuse.
The use of sexual violence was also reported in seven of the 38 documented cases (18%), ranging from stabbing to the use of paralyzing pistols in the genital area to forced nudity and threats, castration or rape.
“Many interviewees described this experience as the worst of their lives, recounting the constant cries of horror of other detainees,” the head of the Documentation department of the Ukrainian NGO Human Rights Center ZMINA, Yelyzaveta Sokurenko, added in the statement.
The report demands in its conclusions section that the Russian authorities take immediate measures to put an end to these human rights violations.
They also ask for the intervention of Ukraine, the International Criminal Court and the international community to investigate the cases of torture and reported ill-treatment.
Finally, it is requested that those responsible for these abuses be held accountable, that support services be provided to victims and that their access to justice be guaranteed through international legal mechanisms.
International
Venezuela Refuses to Repatriate Citizens Amid Tensions Over Chevron’s Departure
The government of Venezuela privately warned the government of Donald Trump that it will not accept its own citizens being deported, following the United States’ decision to end Chevron’s license to operate in the Caribbean country, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal on Friday.
The newspaper, citing sources familiar with the matter, notes that the Venezuelan repatriation agreement is becoming strained after a January meeting between Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell and the Chavista leader Nicolás Maduro, who is not recognized as president by the U.S. The Chevron issue has exacerbated tensions.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration ended Chevron’s license in Venezuela and gave the company a month, until April 3, to leave the country after President Trump criticized Maduro for not accelerating the deportation of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. as quickly as expected.
The WSJ indicates that Venezuela’s private warning could further hinder Trump’s promised mass deportation campaignof undocumented immigrants, which his administration has already had to pause due to the high costs of using military planes for repatriation flights.
International
Hearing suspended in Guatemala on revocation of José Rubén Zamora’s house arrest
Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín will know until next week if he should return to preventive detention, after this Friday the hearing was suspended for a possible revocation of his house arrest.
The resumption of the hearing was rescheduled for next Monday, at 10:00 local time (16:00 GMT), by order of criminal judge Erick García, since, as he indicated, he lacks the case file for the moment.
The possible return of Zamora Marroquín to prison is due to a case of alleged money laundering in 2022, the year in which the Public Ministry (Prosecution), whose leadership is sanctioned internationally under allegations of corruption, began a judicial prosecution against him.
The journalist’s potential return to prison takes place after this week an Appeals Chamber revoked the house arrest measures that had been granted since October 2024 to the former owner and founder of the media El Periódico, a morning in which he uncovered more than a thousand cases of state corruption.
According to the opinion of the magistrates of the Third Appeals Chamber, there was “an error” in the resolution of the judge who decided to release the journalist last year. The review of the measures was requested by the Prosecutor’s Office.
Zamora Marroquín was detained for the case for more than 800 days, between July 29, 2022 and October 2024, without his guilt being proven to date.
Before this Friday’s hearing, the journalist recalled in statements to the media that he has complied with all the court orders regarding his house arrest, and reiterated that he has not seen his family for more than two years, since they are abroad in the face of the risks they could encounter in the Central American country.
Likewise, he added that the persecution against him has been “physical and psychological but I am not going to give up” and described the Third Appeals Chamber as a court linked to the “corrupt” and Deputy Felipe Alejos, sanctioned by the United States for corruption.
Zamora Marroquín, with 30 years of journalistic career, was arrested on July 29, 2022, just five days after issuing strong criticism for corruption against then-President Alejandro Giammattei, between 2020 and 2024, and his close circle.
The journalist remained in prison for a judicial process for alleged money laundering, which according to international organizations such as the Inter-American Press Society (IAPA) has been plagued with irregularities.
International
Trump withdraws 400 million federal funds from Columbia University for anti-Semitism
Donald Trump’s government canceled this Friday subsidies and contracts with Columbia University in New York worth 400 million dollars “due to its passivity in the face of the persistent harassment of Jewish students,” after receiving on Monday a report commissioned by the administration on anti-Semitism on the campuses of several universities in the country.
This cancellation “is the first set of actions, and new cancellations are expected,” warns a statement signed by the general administrative services, which specify that Columbia currently has 5 billion federally committed.
The decision to cut subsidies and contracts has been made together with the federal departments of Justice, Health, Education and Administrative Services, after the operational group commissioned by the government with the specific task of detecting and denouncing anti-Semitic behavior has not received a satisfactory response from Columbia, according to the statement.
Complaints of anti-Semitism began to appear in Columbia and other campuses shortly after October 7, 2023, the date on which Hamas launched a terrorist attack against Israel, which was then followed by a war declared by Israel against Gaza that has been one of the deadliest in several decades.
That war gave rise to demonstrations against Israel as they had not been seen on university campuses for fifty years, with Columbia at the spearhead, with some anti-Jewish incidents that made the Joe Biden Government intervene and summon the rectors of several universities to Congress, several of which (including Columbia’s) had to resign.
Despite the fact that the protests have dropped a lot in terms of intensity, Trump went further than Joe Biden: first, he named that operative group on anti-Semitism on campuses, and second, he threatened to withdraw visas or residence permits from students accused of supporting “terrorist organizations like Hamas.”
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon says that Columbia “for too long has left its homework with Jewish students on its campus, but today we show Columbia and the other universities that we will no longer tolerate that terrible passivity.”
And the director of the group that sent his report last Monday, Leo Torrell, abounded in the threats: “Freezing funds is one of the tools at our disposal to respond to this upsurge in anti-Semitism. This is just the beginning,” he said.
Curiously, in the protests against Israel, one of the most active groups has been the left-wing Jews, who have denounced that under the premise of anti-Semitism, legitimate political criticisms against the State of Israel are being included.
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