Health workers are advising torturers on the most painful way to give electric shocks, according to testimony from victims, amid the “seismic decline” of human rights in Russia, according to a new UN expert report. The special rapporteur on rights in Russia, Mariana Katzarova, denounces in her report “the continuing widespread and systematic recourse to torture and ill-treatment by Russian law enforcement officials, security forces, penitentiary officials and members of the armed forces”. The independent expert, who does not speak on behalf of the UN, said Russian authorities had “dismantled institutional independence, bringing the judiciary, legislature and law enforcement under direct political control … This systemic capture transformed public institutions into instruments of repression and war.”
