Abducted journalist Iryna Danilovych tortured at FSB HQ in Crimea - rights watchdog

Civil journalist Iryna Danilovych was tortured by the Russian occupation administration in Crimea, which is a war crime and is to be investigated by the International Criminal Court.

The analyst with the Crimea SOS human rights non-profit, Yevhen Yaroshenko, announced this on the organization’s website, Ukrinform reports.

As previously reported, the citizen journalist was held for eight days straight in the FSB building. The operatives ran lie detector tests on her and threatened to “take her to the forest” if she hid something. Throughout this time, she was fed once a day. She was later told to sign some blank sheets of paper in exchange for her potential "release." Once the woman has done so, she was told that 200 grams of explosives had allegedly been found in her bag. After that, she was taken to court for the judge to select a measure of restraint in her case.

"Such treatment of Iryna Danilovych can be regarded as torture. Torture may include intentionally inflicting severe pain, physical or moral suffering by authorities in order to obtain information or confessions from a person," Yaroshenko said.

The analyst with CrimeaSOS noted that international law prohibits torture at any time, in any place and under any circumstances – be it war, occupation, state of emergency, etc. Torture in the occupied Crimea may fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court as a war crime or be investigated by other states under the mechanism of universal jurisdiction.

Earlier, on May 12, the Russian occupiers charged Crimean nurse and citizen journalist Iryna Danilovych with illegal "manufacture, transportation or storage of explosives," which entails a prison sentence of six to eight years and a fine of up to 100,000 roubles (UAH 45,000).