As of: March 27, 2024, 7:02 p.m
By: Simon Schröder
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Terror suspects in Moscow are brutally tortured.
The Russian military relies on deterrence.
But what does Putin's blatant demonstration of violence mean?
Moscow – The suspects in the Moscow Concert Hall terror case were brought before a Russian court on Sunday (March 24).
Their faces swollen and bloody.
One of the terrorists was sitting in a wheelchair, seemingly unconscious, with a catheter on his lap.
It appears that the four Islamists were brutally tortured by the Russian military.
Video footage circulating in Russian Telegram groups over the weekend appears to confirm this, as
Reuters
also reported.
The torture of the four terrorists can probably be seen as retaliation for the terrorist attack.
The attack on the concert hall by the four suspects in Moscow on Friday left 137 people dead and another 180 injured.
Terror suspects were tortured in the attacks in St. Petersburg in 2017
It has long been suspected that terrorist suspects are also tortured in Russia.
But this has never been so blatantly displayed.
Research and surveys conducted by Human Rights Watch in 2017 on the IS attacks in St. Petersburg revealed that three of the perpetrators were also questioned under torture.
Now, however, the Russian military itself appears to have published or distributed the videos.
A suspect in the terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall sits in a glass cage in the Basmanny District Court.
© Alexander Zemlianichenko/dpa
Tanya Lokshina, deputy director of Human Rights Watch, expressed her assessment to the British
Guardian
and how the published video recordings should be assessed: “What is different now is the clearly demonstrative nature of the torture.
The footage of the torture appears to be being distributed not randomly, but to warn others planning attacks on Russia that they will face the same consequences.
The Russian authorities are no longer afraid to show that their security services torture people.
There is no more window dressing.”
Russia continues to normalize violence – Putin is sending a clear message
The expert was further concerned.
This reveals how normalized violence has become in Russia.
“Such videos show how much violence in Russia has normalized over the past two years of war.
While there were previously widespread allegations of systematic torture by Russian law enforcement, it would have been unthinkable that they would have proudly released the video evidence.”
Olga Sadovskaya also sees it similarly.
Sadovskaya, a member of the Committee Against Torture, a Russian human rights organization, spoke to The
New York Times
about the public display of the abuse.
“There were two intentions: first, to show people who might plan another terrorist attack what can happen to them, and second, to show society that there is revenge for everything that people did in this terrorist attack suffered.”
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Torture as an acceptable and legitimate means: Putin's message of intimidation
And Sadovskaya also agreed with her colleague from Human Rights Watch on the normalization of violence.
“This shows that the state and the authorities consider violence to be acceptable, that they normalize the torture of a particular subject.” Andrei Soldierov, an expert on the Russian security services, also saw the torture as a message to the civilian population.
By releasing and displaying torture videos, authorities are sending a “message of intimidation to anyone who is not on the Kremlin’s side – and a very encouraging message to the military and security services” to implement torture as a legitimate interrogation method.
(SiSchr)