Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January-June 2007 report on the implementation of the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment. AI had briefed the CAT on its concerns (see Briefing for the Committee against Torture on Ukraine, AI Index: EUR 50/001/2007). Many of these concerns were shared by the CAT including the return of persons to states where there was good reason to believe that they may be subjected to torture; impunity of law enforcement officers for acts of torture; the failure of the General Prosecutor’s office to conduct prompt, impartial and effective investigations into complaints of torture; and the use of confessions as evidence for prosecution which created conditions that may facilitate the use of torture and illtreatment. The CAT also expressed concern regarding violence against ethnic and national minorities, and the low level of prosecutions for domestic violence. In June, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) published the report of its visit to Ukraine in October 2005. The CPT found that there had been a “slight reduction as regards the scale of the phenomenon of ill-treatment”, but that persons detained by the police still ran a “significant risk” of being subjected to ill-treatment, and even torture, particularly during interrogation. The CPT called on the government to give a clear message of “zero tolerance” for torture and other illtreatment to all staff of the Ministry of the Interior. The CPT drew attention to the misuse of the Administrative Code in order to bring people into police custody for questioning about criminal offences, the fact that judges often failed to react to allegations of ill-treatment, and that forensic reports in cases of allegations of illtreatment could only be provided subject to authorization by the police. The CPT received allegations of ill-treatment and verbal abuse by staff working at centres for the reception and dispersal of vagrants. At the Uzhgorod centre for vagrants detainees from sub-Saharan Africa were allegedly forced to strip naked and perform physical exercises in front of staff. The government Amnesty International 129 had responded that the allegations had been investigated and that several members of staff had been disciplined. Racism In April, in a letter to the Prosecutor General, the security service chief, and the Interior Minister, President Viktor Yushchenko asked that measures be taken to arrest and punish anybody defacing Jewish and other memorial sites, and he noted the rise of “extremist” groups in Ukraine. At a press briefing in Geneva in June, following the murder of an Iraqi asylumseeker in Kyiv, the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) expressed concern that racist attacks against asylum-seekers, refugees and other foreigners were increasing. The motives for the murder of the Iraqi asylumseeker were not clear and a police investigation was under way. Murder of Georgiy Gongadze (Update to AI Index: EUR 01/012/2005) The trial against three police officers charged with murdering the investigative journalist, Georgiy Gongadze, in 2000 continued. On 16 February, President Yushchenko awarded former Prosecutor General, Mykhailo Potebenko, the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise for his contribution to the building of a law abiding state. Mykhailo Potebenko was Prosecutor General at the time of Georgiy Gongadze’s murder in September 2000. In its 2005 decision the European Court of Human Rights found that the prosecutor’s office had ignored repeated requests for assistance from Georgiy Gongadze in the weeks before his death, when he reported being followed by state law enforcement officials. “The response of the Prosecutor General’s office was not only formalistic,” the court stated, “but also blatantly negligent.” Moreover, following the recovery of Georgiy Gongadze’s headless body, the European Court stated: “The AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007