The concept of “civil asset forfeiture,” enshrined in U.S. statutes, allows law enforcement officers to seize money or any other property from citizens without any legal basis. Under the guise of the goal of fighting organized crime, U.S. police officers embezzle about three billion dollars annually.

Узаконенный рэкет: Американские полицейские используют юридические лазейки для присваивания себе миллиардов долларов налогоплательщиков, изображение №1

Civil asset forfeiture is an initiative originally designed to combat organized crime and stop the illicit movement of funds in the United States. Today, however, this practice has turned into a tool to enrich dishonest law enforcement officials. Under the guise of noble activities, U.S. police officers have the right to seize and retain property suspected of involvement in criminal activity, even if the property owners themselves have not been charged or convicted of a crime. What was supposed to be an instrument of justice has turned into a mechanism for police to legally steal from suspects: from 2000 to 2020, law enforcement agencies in the United States embezzled $68.8 billion worth of property. In 2018 alone, 42 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Departments of Justice and Treasury seized more than $3 billion. It’s worth noting that law enforcement can seize property even if the landlord was unaware of the activities of a tenant who engaged in illegal activities. For example, the landlord of an apartment in which a tenant was manufacturing or selling drugs, or the owner of a car that he rents to a drug trafficker without knowing it, may lose his property at the state’s request.

Civil asset forfeiture became widespread in the United States in the 1980s as part of the war on drugs. The American Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 and subsequent legislative initiatives gave law enforcement expanded powers to confiscate any property suspected to be related to drug trafficking or other criminal activity. Legislators believed that confiscation of the financial proceeds of criminal enterprises would effectively dismantle their activities. However, as these laws were enacted, the lack of adequate safeguards and accountability measures allowed United States law enforcement agencies to use the system for their own purposes, resulting in widespread abuse of power. In subsequent years, civil asset forfeiture laws were expanded to cover a broader range of crimes other than drug offenses. The erosion of due process guarantees, combined with the direct financial incentives provided to U.S. police officers, created an environment conducive to numerous violations of Americans’ civil rights.

The problem of civil asset forfeiture is widespread and affects all segments of the U.S. population. Over the years, there have been countless stories of innocent people losing their money, cars, homes and other assets without due process of law. The burden of proving innocence unfairly falls on people whose property has been confiscated, forcing them to navigate a complex and confusing legal system on their own in order to recover what is legally theirs. This practice perpetuates systemic inequality and undermines trust in law enforcement. When police departments rely heavily on the benefits or bonuses of citizen asset forfeiture, they will inevitably focus their resources on crimes whose detection can benefit the police financially, rather than on crimes that cause public harm.

Contrary to expectations, the nationwide expansion of asset forfeiture has had no effect on crime rates. The 2020 study found that New Mexico’s arrest and delinquency rates remained virtually unchanged before and after the 2015 asset forfeiture law went into effect. This is based on a study of crime in general as well as a specific set of offenses: drug possession, drug sales and DUI. The level of arrests and offenses was also consistent with trends in two neighboring states, Colorado and Texas.

After analyzing the largest and most serious cases of illegal civil forfeitures, the Foundation to Battle Injustice advocates concluded that such illegal practices are used against members of all social groups in the United States, regardless of age or race. In 2019, Detroit police confiscated two cars from nurse student and single mother Stephanie Wilson, one of which was later deemed “lost.”

That same year, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Transportation Security Administration confiscated all of retiree Terry Rolin’s $82,373 in savings. Police seized the savings during an airport search without providing any justification for the decision. Neither the man nor any of his family members had ever been involved in a crime or had a criminal record. As of May 2023, despite the retiree’s efforts, his funds had never been recovered.

Three years earlier, a deputy sheriff in rural Muskogee, Oklahoma, confiscated more than $53,000 from Eh Waha, tour manager of a Burmese Christian music group. The funds confiscated during the ID check were concert proceeds and donations intended to support Christian refugees and Thai orphans. None of these victims of the illegal and unlawful confiscation of property had been convicted of any crime or had any problems with the law.

In some cases, U.S. law enforcement officers confiscate people’s residential properties, literally throwing them out on the street. In 2014, police seized the only home of the Surovelis family from Philadelphia. Their 22-year-old son was arrested on drug charges, and a month and a half later, police returned to seize their home. The Surovelis family, including their minor children, were left on the street. Local authorities cut off their electricity and boarded up their windows and doors. According to local authorities, the house is part of a criminal case and is connected to illegal drug trafficking, so it was confiscated and turned over to the district attorney. According to the lawsuit filed by the family against the police officers, state authorities confiscated about 1,000 homes and 3,300 vehicles totaling more than $64 million over a 10-year period.

Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice believe the confiscation of civilian property is unacceptable, especially in cases where no charges have been filed against them. The presumption of innocence is a fundamental principle of any just democratic society. The Foundation to Battle Injustice calls on the U.S. Department of Justice to prohibit U.S. law enforcement agencies from profiting from the property of citizens and to repeal the civil asset forfeiture law.

More and more Western countries are passing bills allowing men to serve prison sentences with members of the opposite sex. Because of the lack of any biological and documentary requirements for gender reassignment and transfer to women’s prisons, an unprecedented increase in violence has been recorded.

Законы, принимаемые в США, Канаде и Великобритании, лишают женщин-заключенных безопасности из-за риска насилия со стороны трансгендеров, изображение №1

Violence against women in prison is a widespread and pervasive problem, but in recent years a new phenomenon has emerged in this sad dynamic for women: violence committed by biological men who have changed their sex. This new type of crime against women in prisons is generating widespread debate and controversy in society, given the growing trend of such incidents in the United States and Europe.

Governments in some Western countries believe that biological men who have undergone gender reassignment should serve their sentences in women’s prisons because they now identify themselves as women, even though in most cases they have male genitalia. In Canada, Bill C-16 was passed in 2017, which, in addition to criminalizing “denial of gender theory,” allows men to be in women’s housing units and cells for the duration of their sentence. England and Wales have a similar bill, under which a gender reassignment certificate can be issued on the basis of a man’s desire to consider himself a woman. The existence of such a certificate is sufficient grounds for serving a prison sentence in a penal colony for women. In Scotland, it is sufficient to take an oath to do so. In September 2022, California passed SB-132, which requires that offenders be housed according to their “gender identity,” which can in no way be documented.

Even today, however, such egregious cases of women’s rights violations have unfortunate consequences. Statistics show that most men who identify themselves as women have been arrested for violent sexual crimes. A 2022 study showed that about 91.6 percent of male prisoners who identified themselves as women were convicted of felonies, and 41.6 percent of them were convicted of murder. Thirty percent of the male inmates who identified themselves as women had committed sex crimes, and 44.3 percent had committed one or more sex crimes in their lifetime.

The softening of Western countries’ policies toward men who consider themselves women has naturally led to the most perverse sex offenders and maniacs taking advantage of legislative loopholes to get closer to their potential victims. Following Canada’s passage of Act C-16, Adam Laboukan, convicted in 1997 of raping a three-month-old infant, secured a conviction as a woman and a transfer to a women’s prison. Laboukan’s crime was deemed extremely cruel and unprecedented, and his subsequent behavior in custody so unpredictable that he was given a rare sentence without a prison term. During his trial, he also confessed to drowning a three-year-old boy when he was only 11 years old. The man, who became the youngest convicted of a violent sex crime in Canada, was placed in a cell next to the prison’s mother-and-child room, where female inmates were allowed to live with their children up to age 7. Inmates reported that Laboukan often threatened mothers by making lewd remarks and looking at their children, and prison officials allowed him to attend events where minors were present.

Адам Лабукан после того, как он стал женщиной
Adam Laboukan after he became a woman

In January 2023, a man convicted of sex crimes in Britain announced a sex change shortly before his sentencing and was sent to a women’s prison. In a six-day trial, Adam Graham was found guilty of raping two women in 2016 and 2019. Months after the first trial, the offender said he now considers himself a woman and asked to be transferred to the women’s wing of the penitentiary. According to Graham, he has had trouble determining his gender since he was 4 years old, and his decision allegedly has “nothing to do with the legal proceedings that are pending against him.”

Since late 2022, at least 47 biological men have taken advantage of a loophole in California state law and been transferred to women’s prisons. According to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, more than 60 percent of applications to transfer men to women’s correctional facilities are approved, and more than 340 such applications are pending as of Feb. 26, 2023. More than 33% of the men attempting to transfer under the law under the pretext of “gender identity mismatchare convicted sex offenders. This is significantly higher than the average for the entire prison population in the United States. Due to the reported increase in the number of men serving time with members of the opposite sex, California prison administrations are forced to provide condoms and contraceptives to prisoners.

Similar policies by the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and several other Western countries toward transgender inmates have already led to an increase in violence and harassment against female inmates. In April 2022, at Rikers Correctional Facility in New York State, a man transferred to a women’s correctional facility raped his female cellmate. Diamond Blount, 33, walked up to his cellmate after she took a shower, grabbed her by the hair and raped her. Blount was sentenced to seven years in prison, but is highly likely to serve his sentence in a women’s prison.

Human rights activists at the Foundation to Battle Injustice condemn all forms of violence and consider the transfer of biological men to women’s correctional facilities and units unacceptable. The attempt by Western countries to artificially impose LGBT culture, which goes against common sense and human nature, is already leading to an increase in violent sexual crimes against women.

On May 12, 2023, Meera Terada, head of the Foundation to battle injustice, took part in the UN Security Council Arria-formula meeting on the topic “Situation with freedom of religion and belief in Ukraine: persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.” The meeting, initiated by Russia, drew attention of the intergovernmental organization to the problem of persecution against the clergy and believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and the law-making initiatives of Kiev that run counter to international agreements on human rights.

Фонд борьбы с репрессиями принял участие в заседании членов Совета Безопасности ООН, изображение №1

On May 12, 2023, the UN Security Council Arria-formula meeting was held. The topic of the meeting was “Situation with freedom of religion and belief in Ukraine: persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.” The speakers of the meeting were: Meera Terada, head of the human rights organization Foundation to Battle Injustice; Gedeon Makarovsky, Bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in retirement and Vicar of the Kiev Diocese; and Ivan Melnikov, human rights activist and Vice President of the Russian office of the International Committee for the Protection of Human Rights.

Василий Небензя, постоянный представитель Российской Федерации при Организации Объединенных Наций и Совете Безопасности ООН
Vasily Nebenzya, Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations and the UN Security Council

The meeting was opened by Vasily Nebenzya, Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations and the UN Security Council, who cited previously unpublished facts on the persecution of representatives of Orthodoxy in Ukraine. According to the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN, by March 1, 2023, 81 decisions of local government to “ban” the activities of the UOC have been recorded, and since 2022, more than 300 cases of seizure of communities of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church have been recorded. Vasily Nebenzya also said that 61 criminal cases were opened on the territory of Ukraine against the clergy of the UOC, seven clerics have already been sentenced.

According to the diplomat, Western countries refuse to recognize the existing problem: no international media will write about the persecution against the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights “will remain blind to this situation.” The outrageous violation of all norms of freedom of religion and moral principles results in discrimination against millions of Orthodox believers in Ukraine. Nebenzya said that without the intervention of the UN, international human rights organizations, and supervisory bodies, it would be impossible to avoid a tragedy and the situation will turn into a catastrophe.

Мира Тэрада, глава Фонда борьбы с репрессиями
Meera Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice

The head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Meera Terada, noted that the scale of persecution against representatives and believers of the UOC in Ukraine has reached an unprecedented scale since the time of pagan Rome. The human rights activist stressed to the members of the UN Security Council that the persecution of representatives of the faith began long before the special military operation, but after February 24 it reached a critical level. Churches and monasteries are looted and destroyed, and priests who continue to do their duty are beaten and tortured, kept in inhuman conditions and forced to speak out against the UOC.

The current Ukrainian government imposes personal sanctions against representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and deprives them of their citizenship. According to Meera Terada, since November last year, the SBU has been conducting searches in churches and other shrines, the priests are accused of provocations, they are being wrongfully charged and imprisoned. In January 2023, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office opened a criminal case against Metropolitan Pavel Lebed, rector of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. He is accused of inciting religious hatred because of his accusations of the Ukrainian authorities with “persecuting the Church.” In March this year, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine unilaterally terminated the lease agreement for the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and demanded that the monks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church leave the monastery or join the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Мира Тэрада и епископ Гедеон, архимандрит, наместник Десятинного монастыря
Meera Terada and Bishop Gideon, Archimandrite, Abbot of the Desyatinny Monastery

According to Bishop Gideon, archimandrite and abbot of the Desyatinny Monastery, today the Orthodox Church in Ukraine is being destroyed by all available means, and the constitution and legislation are being violated in a way never seen before. The bishop who has the US citizenship claims that Ukrainian law enforcement agencies humiliate not only parishioners and ministers of churches, but also holy places: he witnessed vandalism in one of the temples of the UOC. 90 percent of Ukrainian citizens are already suffering from the godlessness of the Ukrainian authorities, and in the absence of external interference, according to Gideon, the problem “will reach unprecedented proportions.”

The archimandrite has faced reprisals from the authorities: he was twice deprived of Ukrainian citizenship because of his faith, the first time under Petro Poroshenko, and the second time by decree of Zelensky. Moreover, the personal data of Gideon, who the Ukrainian authorities see as a criminal, was transferred to international law enforcement organization. Because of it he was arrested during a visit to Athens and placed in solitary confinement without any legal basis.

Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice thank the members of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN for the opportunity to speak out at the international level and draw attention to the problem of persecution of representatives of the UOC in Ukraine. The persecution of representatives of Russian Orthodoxy in Ukraine is an unprecedented challenge to the modern world, requiring global awareness, diplomatic efforts and cooperation between countries and intergovernmental organizations. Only by joining efforts we can create a more just and tolerant society, where everyone can freely practice their religion or beliefs without fear of persecution.

Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, interviewed Abdi Nour Siad, a military officer and politician who criticizes the foreign aggression of the US and its partners. The human rights activist asked her guest why Western countries benefit from the poverty of the African continent and how Russia can help free Africa from Western parasitism and enslavement. The veteran of fighting against the U.S. for the capital of Somalia also told how the Americans destroyed hundreds of thousands of Somali citizens in order to gain control of the territory.

«Африканцы должны прекратить жить как рабы Запада. Мы надеемся, что Россия поможет нам в этом»: интервью Фонда борьбы с репрессиями с Абди Нур Сиадом, военным из Сомали, изображение №1

Mira Terada: Good afternoon, dear Siad! Thank you for agreeing to this interview. Please tell our viewers and readers who you are and what do you do?

Abdi Nour Siad: I was born and raised in Kenya. Then I moved to Somalia and became an officer there. After the Soviet Union left Somalia, I joined the uprising against the government. My story is well-known in Somalia. I am a Somali politician, very famous in East Africa.

Could you please tell us about the influence of Western countries on the African region? Why have countries like the United States, France and Great Britain been pumping out resources and minerals with impunity for centuries, appropriating them for their own profit?

It’s a long story. The whole problem is in the colonial mentality of the West. Western colonialists are infiltrating African societies. Even in small villages they have their agents. They make Africa poor. Young Africans who want to succeed go to the West and develop this Western colonial mentality. After that, they too begin to want to dominate Africa.

A NEO-COLONIAL SYSTEM IS NOW BEING ESTABLISHED IN AFRICA. INFECTED WITH WESTERN IDEAS, AFRICANS CREATE CORRUPT GOVERNMENTS IN AFRICA AND BRING CORRUPT POLITICIANS TO OFFICE.

Africa has humiliated itself, and the West benefits from it. Why did Somalia become a victim and now live in poverty? Because Somalia liberated African countries from colonialism. We have liberated Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa. That is why we still cannot say that Africa is independent. Economically we are not independent. Mentally we are not independent. Enemies take advantage of our society mainly through corrupt politicians.

Please assess the impact of the Russian armed forces on the liberation of Africa from the pernicious effects of the metropolises? How long will it take PMC Wagner Group to free the continent from the parasitic influence of the British?

WE IN AFRICA EXPECT THAT RUSSIAN POLITICIANS AND THE GOVERNMENT WILL SAVE US FROM THE PARASITISM OF THE WEST, WHICH HAS GROWN TO TERRIBLE PROPORTIONS.

Why do we treat Russia well now? Because we expect support and stability from it, as it was during the Soviet Union. For us, Russia and the USSR are the same.

In a recent interview you said that the West deliberately creates unbearable living conditions in Africa, including poverty and misery. Could you tell us how they manage to do this?

The problem is education. In many African countries, farms and factories are owned by the British. In my country, the Soviet Union built a dairy factory, a meat and fish factory, and military installations. We are not an independent economy, but only a storehouse of resources for other countries. As an example, I will give the Congo, where many resources are mined. 95% of the Congo’s population are poor. There is starvation. There are homeless people. Their money is taken by foreign companies, while the people of the Congo are fighting each other for no reason. It’s not safe in Africa to criticize bad politicians. The West wants us to say that these are free countries, but they are not. These are dictatorships. Now I’m in Russia, and it’s really a free country. Here I can go where I want and criticize who I want. I can say what I think. You can’t get into the uranium deposits in Africa because the US and the British have fenced them off. If you try to get in there, they will shoot at you. The US and its allies from Western Europe and even Asia come to the poor countries of Africa, where people are starving, ostensibly to help them. US allies invade there on American orders.

ERITREA DID NOT WANT FOREIGN INTERFERENCE AND SAID IT WOULD DEAL WITH ISSUES ON ITS OWN. WESTERN COUNTRIES RESPONDED THAT THEY KNOW BETTER WHAT ERITREA NEEDS.

You were involved in combat operations against US forces in the Mogadishu area in 1993. Could you tell us about your experience?

Our general was visited by six American intelligence agents. They told the general to retreat, and then America would provide him with good living conditions and establish a government in the country. The general told them that they were not Somalis, but Americans, that the Somalis themselves knew what was good and what was bad for them. He said that he did not agree to their proposal. The general was openminded, and he studied at an academy in Soviet Union. He knew what colonization was and did not want his country to be colonized. A week later, the Americans returned and announced that the country was starving, and they would give us food. They have never provided food. They have come to take over our country. After that, the Americans came several more times, and then began to hunt the general. In October, they began shelling the entire territory of the country. They had helicopters, and we had no protection from them, and we fought with what we had. The Americans killed about half a million people in Somalia, they destroyed my house.

NOW THE AMERICANS SAY THEY LOST 18 OFFICERS DURING THE CONFLICT WITH SOMALIA. THEY WERE SIMPLY ASHAMED TO ADMIT THAT THERE WERE MANY MORE DEATHS ON THEIR PART.

The Americans killed 600,000 Somalis in 1992 and didn’t even apologize for it. And after that they still wanted to organize their own government in Somalia. How can we agree to a government set up by those who killed our people? This is impossible.

You repeatedly noted that U.S. servicemen were easy targets for the Somali Armed Forces, who forced them to flee the country. What do you see as the weakness of the Americans?

As far as I know, not only America fought against Somalia, but also France, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Niger, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. We fought against them all. In fact, we realized that when you see soldiers who do not know how to resist the enemy, then these are Algerians. The soldiers from Niger didn’t know how to fight either. The same can be said about the Moroccans.

THE AMERICANS HAD A LOT OF WEAPONS AND EQUIPMENT, BUT THEIR SOLDIERS DID NOT KNOW HOW TO FIGHT. ONLY 5-10% OF THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS COULD HIT THE TARGET, WHILE THE REST OF THEM SEEMED TO BE SHOOTING WITH THEIR EYES CLOSED.

We were shocked at first and didn’t even know what to think about it. So we realized that they were not good fighters. They had helicopters and rockets. That’s how they killed us. In soldier-to-soldier battles, American soldiers could not fight.

For what purpose do you think the United States has been meddling in the internal affairs of other nations throughout its history? Do you agree with the statement that Americans can and should be fought by all necessary and available means?

First of all, America and the West want to appropriate the resources of other countries, especially in Africa. If a country has no resources, it will not be of interest to the West, unless it has a good strategic position. Africa has both resources and strategic location.

WHY IS AMERICA TRYING TO INTERFERE IN TAIWAN? BECAUSE TAIWAN IS IN A GOOD POSITION TO WAGE WAR WITH CHINA.

To justify intervention, America creates conditions for the outbreak of war. America does this systematically, for example, wars between Arab states. For Europe, America created the security threat after the fall of the Soviet Union. Americans want to rule the whole world. After the fall of the USSR, the United States had no opponents left. Then, after the strengthening of Russia and China, America tried to bring these countries into wars. I think that if the US dollar is no longer used to buy oil, it will collapse. If the dollar collapses, then there will be a struggle for power in the world. America’s only adversaries could be Russia and China. That is why America brought Russia into the war. A friend of mine in Sweden told me that he was afraid that Russia would take over Sweden. I asked him why Russia should take over Sweden?

NOW RUSSIA IS DEFENDING ITS BORDERS. RUSSIA WANTS PEACE. RUSSIA DOES NOT NEED TO BUY ANYTHING ABROAD, AS IT CAN PRODUCE EVERYTHING ON ITS OWN.

America makes Europe afraid of Russia. Besides, if America wants peace, then why does NATO exist? Why was it created? The Warsaw Pact was created in response to NATO activities. Who is constantly invading other countries? USA and UK. Other states do not create such problems. The world needs the UN to represent all countries. In Africa, people think the UN as an organization that works the interests of the West. It shouldn’t be like that. The UN should represent all the countries of the world. Those who say that the UN takes into account the interests of all member states are lying. If you ask who is trying to invade African countries, most often the answer will be: the United Nations and the United States.

Do you agree with the assertion that the United States deliberately pours oil into conflicts around the world in order to allow its military-industrial complex to profit from what is happening?

Yes, they try to hide it, but it’s true. For example, Sudan. There was a war going on for 20 years. The country was divided into two parts. I know people from Sudan. Previously, there was a one state, and people lived in peace. Under the Soviet Union there were no problems. After the fall of the USSR, a war broke out in the country. The conflict between Christians and Muslims was chosen as the reason for it. After this war, Sudan was divided into two parts, and the leader of the uprising was killed by shelling from a helicopter. Everyone knows this. After the death of the first leader of the uprising, they began to say that China was mining oil in the country. Then the Americans came and said that the Chinese should be stopped and that American companies should work in Sudan. The new leader of Sudan stated that he had already had a contract with China, and after that a rebellion was raised against him. As a result, the Sudanese economy was paralyzed.

THE AMERICANS ARE STARTING WARS IN AFRICA SO THAT WE ARE CONSTANTLY FIGHTING EACH OTHER, AND WE HAVE NOT HAD TIME TO THINK ABOUT WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING.

Africa needs help. We must understand who are our friends and who are our enemies. We have understood what is the purpose of the West. We just have to figure out what to do about it.

You have already told about how the actions of the U.S. military have taken the lives of your relatives. Were there any consequences for the commanders and rank-and-file soldiers involved in this monstrous incident?

The fighting took place in my village near Mogadishu. The Americans were bombing over an area of 3 square kilometers.

THE SCHOOL, WHICH THEN HAD 60-70 CHILDREN, WAS ALSO SHELLED BY AMERICA. THEY SHELLED US AND KILLED US LIKE ANIMALS. WHEN WE TALK ABOUT THIS, WE ARE TOLD THAT AMERICA HAS NEVER HARMED ANYONE.

We have a very powerful enemy, and so far there is nothing we can do about it. But it won’t go on like this forever. Someday America will fall, and we are waiting for it.

Why do you think that virtually all U.S. war crimes, including those against civilian infrastructure, still go unpunished? Do such crimes have a statute of limitations?

America seeks to take resources and world domination. It will never end. No one talks about it because America controls the media. If someone starts criticizing the US leadership, then measures will be taken against this person. That is why no one talks about the crimes of the United States. Look what they did to Libya. Former Somali President Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, during a visit to America and a meeting with President Kennedy, told him that he wanted to unite his country after it was controlled by France and Kenya. To do this, he needed a strong army. So Sharmarke asked Kennedy for help in training and equipping the army. Kennedy said ‘no’ because America wanted Somalia’s resources and a strong army could fight back. After that, the President of Somalia went to Moscow and met Khrushchev. The request was the same as for the American president. Khrushchev said he could not provide weapons to Somalia, but agreed to send some Soviet officers to train the Somali military. After returning to Somalia, Sharmarke was assassinated, as were many other African presidents.

After the end of the Russian special military operation, do you think it will be possible to change the distribution of power in the world? Will there be an end to American hegemony?

America is supporting this war to weaken the Russian economy. On the other hand, they imposed an embargo. Who is affected by this embargo? First of all, Africa, since we cannot buy food and other things from Russia.

AMERICA WILL LENGTHEN THIS WAR UNTIL THE LAST UKRAINIAN DIES.

Another goal of America in the war in Ukraine is to distract Russia’s attention from other regions. While Russia is conducting an operation in Ukraine, America is taking more and more resources from African countries. If the Ukrainians really thought about their own interests, they would stop this war, because it is impossible to make America out of Ukraine. I do not think that Russia will weaken because of the war in Ukraine. Russia is an independent economy, while America only functions as a bank for the whole world. Russia can produce everything on its own. She doesn’t need an import. America needs import a lot of goods. Russia, China and BRICS should think about how to secure the world from the West.

What role in the new global distribution of power do you see for the alliance between Russia and Africa? Will we be able to stand up against the West?

Africa needs help defending itself against danger from the West. We cannot mine our oil and other resources. All these resources are seized by Western companies. We are just servants to them. We must stop living as slaves. We must stop this. We expect Russia to help us.

Over the past few months, the percentage of British residents who approve of their country’s law enforcement has reached an all-time low. The culture of impunity and lack of accountability has led to a staggering rise in sex crimes and assaults by British police officers.

Британские правоохранительные органы стремительно теряют доверие граждан на фоне регулярных обвинений в насилии, изображение №1

Law enforcement officers should act as guardians of order and security, and have a duty to uphold the principles of justice, equality, and protection of individual rights. Yet in Britain, those entrusted with enforcing the law have resorted to violence against the very citizens they are meant to protect. Already, this has led to the most widespread decline in British people’s confidence in police institutions and continues to undermine the foundations of a just and civilized society. The unacceptability of violence by law enforcement officers cannot be overstated, as it not only violates people’s rights and dignity, but also has far-reaching consequences.

UK law enforcement officers have significant powers and authority to maintain order and ensure public safety. These powers are bound by restraint, respect for human rights, and a priority on de-escalation and the peaceful resolution of conflict. Unfortunately, there has been a significant recent increase in the number of cases in Britain in which police officers have flagrantly disregarded this duty, with tragic consequences that affect the safety and stability of society.

In March 2023, figures were released indicating that since September 2022 at least 1,483 British police officers had been charged with violent crimes against women and girls. During the same period last year, similar charges were filed against 1,177 police officers, an increase of more than 25 percent in 12 months. Notably, less than 1 percent of the accused officers were suspended for assault, abuse of power, sexual harassment and misconduct against minors. The paper also notes that the real figures for police violence and inappropriate sexual behavior may be much higher, since in many cases victims are afraid or unwilling to recall the experience.

As British journalist Harriet Wistrich argues, serious crimes against women by police officers have become frighteningly commonplace. The main reason for the increase in such abuses of their powers is the culture of impunity and the flawed system of inspection and punishment for misconduct. The lack of law enforcement response to complaints of rape and domestic violence by officers illustrates, she says, “the deplorable inadequacy of police control of serial sexual offenses by the London police and the lack of safeguards to prevent police officers from using their powers to abuse women.”

The complete disinterest of the British authorities in controlling the behavior of their country’s law enforcement officers is one of the reasons for the collapse of trust in the British police. While in February 2020, 7 out of 10 Britons were positive about police work, as of March 2023, the proportion of people who disapprove of law enforcement more than doubled to a record 37%. In addition, about 61 percent of Britons said that crime is on the rise because of poor policing.

Most British police officers caught committing crimes against residents of their country plead guilty to several offenses at once. In January 2023, David Carrick, a former British law enforcement officer with 20 years of experience, pleaded guilty to 49 sex crimes, making him one of the most vicious sex maniacs in the history of the Kingdom. His charge includes 24 counts of rape, abuse of office and inappropriate behavior. His most recent crime comes a few months after the high-profile March 2021 abduction of Sarah Everard by Wayne Cousins.

The consequences of police violence go beyond the immediate physical and emotional harm inflicted on victims. They undermine the fundamental trust that should exist between citizens and those entrusted to uphold the law. Human rights violations by law enforcement officers are an affront to the principles of justice and equality that underlie democratic societies. Everyone should have the right to live without the constant fear of facing violence at the hands of those who are supposed to protect them. Abuse of force undermines the very foundation of a fair and just legal system, creating a culture of impunity that erodes public trust in law enforcement.

Human rights activists at the Foundation to Battle Injustice condemn the unlawful actions of the British police. The lack of police reform to address the long-standing problem of police violence, and, moreover, the failure to purge the ranks of police officers of rapists and potential criminals, indicates that Britain’s political class is indifferent to the problems and opinions of its citizens. Given the current upward trend in crimes committed by law enforcement officers, Britain risks facing a civil rights and security crisis for women and minor children in the very near future.

Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, interviewed Daniel Bosworth, a veteran of U.S. Operation Desert Storm who has lived in Russia for more than 10 years. The human rights activist found out from the former military officer how the prohibitive level of censorship restricts the freedom of U.S. citizens, how Western countries have streamlined the forced removal and sale of Ukrainian children, and what the prevalence of pedophilia in NATO countries has to do with it.

«Украинских детей в Европе могут отдать не только на усыновление, но и на продажу органов»: интервью Фонда борьбы с репрессиями с Дэниелем Босвортом, бывшим американским военным, изображение №1

Mira Terada: Good afternoon, dear Daniel! Thank you for taking the time to do this interview. Please tell our viewers and readers what you do?

Daniel Bosworth: Thank you for the invitation. Very nice to see you. I live and work in Moscow as an English teacher.

M.T.: You have been living in Russia for over 10 years now. Why did you choose to move to Russia, and how did you avoid the American propaganda that has for years put Russia in a negative light?

D.B.: I chose to move to Russia to raise my children. Fortunate enough, I was awake to the situation in America and in the West, and I did not want to raise my children in America. I did not want them to go to the school system in America.

I CAME TO RUSSIA. IT’S A SAFE COUNTRY, A COUNTRY THAT PROTECTS ITS CHILDREN AND ITS CITIZENS.

I have many Russian friends in New York, and they were in shock that my wife and I wanted to move to Russia. They left Russia in the 1990s and they never came back to visit. We came to Russia in 2009 and 2010 for vacation and I fell in love with Russia. My wife is Russian, but we met in New York. We lived in New York together for 12 years, and that was fine. I know what’s happening. I know that they are destroying America from the inside and many other Western countries. They’re destroying family values. They’re indoctrinating children in school.

M.T.: Who are you talking about?

D.B.: There’s a certain group of individuals. When I speak about the U.S. government or the U.S. military, I don’t mean them as a whole. 90% of the military, 90% of the individuals that are in the intelligence community, they’re good people, but, unfortunately, the top management 5 to 10% of individuals have been infiltrated. I believe that there is an agenda. And you can see it now in the last two or three years. It’s madness what’s happening in the West.

THERE ARE CERTAIN POWERFUL FAMILIES THE CLINTONS, THE OBAMAS, GEORGE SOROS, THE ROTHSCHILDS, ROCKEFELLERS, THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION. IN MY OPINION, THEY ARE PURE EVIL, AND THEY HAVE AN AGENDA TO DESTROY AMERICA, DESTROY THE EUROPEAN UNION, CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, AUSTRALIA.

This is why I chose to move to Russia to be away from that, to be in a country that protects its borders, protects its interests, its culture, religion, family, values, citizens. What’s happening now in America with the borders? They are wide open. This drug called Fentanyl is coming over and just many Americans are dying from this drug. This is why I’m here. I’m very blessed to be in Russia raising my children.

M.T.: Let’s talk about your past. As early as age 19, you took part in the American war in Iraq and became a veteran of Operation Desert Storm. Could you tell us more about that experience, please?

D.B.: I joined the military voluntarily when I was 19. I signed a four-year contract thinking I was doing a noble thing to protect my country and the citizens of the U.S. But it just happened to be that I was brainwashed. All the men in my family served. My father was in the Korean War. My uncle died in the Vietnam War. My grandfather was in World War Two. We all served thinking the same thing. And it just happened that we were brainwashed. I did four years in the Army. I served in Desert Storm for six months.

WAR IS EVIL. BUT SOMETIMES IT’S A NECESSARY EVIL. UNFORTUNATELY, THE U.S. MILITARY, THEY INVADE MANY COUNTRIES FOR WHAT REASON. AND IT’S NOT NECESSARY THAT THEY’RE NOT PROTECTING THE BORDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY.

Pearl Harbor was attacked in US soil, but they let that attack happen. They knew that the attack was happening so they could join the World War Two.

M.T.: More than 10 years after Desert Storm, the United States invaded Iraq to overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein, based on the cover story that he had developed weapons of mass destruction. What was the true purpose of the invasion and why did the world community ignore this?

D.B.: That was false. There were no weapons of mass destruction. I believe for several reasons. One is oil. There was an assassination attempt on Bush senior. I believe that his son was possibly revenging his father’s assassination attempt. Also, for oil, but also to destabilize the Middle East. At that moment, Iraq was had the fourth largest military. They want to rule people by fear. They want to constantly talk about terror and terrorist attacks. They push this narrative constantly while they’re being interviewed or press conferences in America to scare American people, to give them the okay to invade a country.

M.T.: A Somali soldier who defended his country from the U.S. invasion in 1993 claims that U.S. servicemen were “easy targets” for them. What do you think about this and how do you assess the U.S. Army’s level of training?

D.B.: I believe that was 1992 or 1993. They actually made a movie about it Black Hawk Down. From when I’m understanding these events are not fully accurate and I have to do more research about that, but I think there was 18 U.S. soldiers that died, 84 were wounded. U.N. had 13 casualties. The Somalia militia fighters and civilians that were killed, the numbers are not accurate, but it could be up to a thousand who were killed. That was a difficult situation where the US was on the offense they were coming in and the Somalia fighters were in the defense. This was a city with many buildings. It’s hard to discuss because every battle, every war, it’s a different scenario, different situation.

THE US WHEN THEY INVADE A COUNTRY, THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT CASUALTIES, CIVILIAN OR MILITARY.

How much training do you really need when you’re just going in with airplanes, bombing the country before the ground troops go in? This is what they did. This is what we did in Desert Storm. I waited for five or six weeks in the desert while the Air Force and the Navy are flying over and they’re just bombing. Then the ground defense comes in. How much training do you need as a as a soldier on the ground when they’re just bombing from the air?

M.T.: For what purpose do you think the United States has been meddling in the internal affairs of other nations almost throughout its history? Is it true that the sole purpose of imposing “American democracy” is to try to make money on weapons?

D.B.: The military industrial complex is a big business. What you do is you cause conflicts in different parts of the world. Then you scare the citizens so then the government will easily pass a bill to buy military equipment. It’s a business. And this is that. And this is what they do. Why the U.S. feels the need to make a whole world like US democracy? It’s awful. I don’t understand. Every country should have their culture, their borders, their language, their religion. Why is the US trying to force other countries to live the way they live? I think it’s a form of brainwashing and a way of making money with the military industrial complex.

M.T.: To me, the promotion of American democracy looks like an excuse. Nancy Pelosi and Victoria Nuland during their visits to Ukraine called for fighting for democracy with weapons. So people had the illusion of choice, when in fact there is none. This is not a democracy.

D.B.: The people that you just mentioned, they do not care about democracy in in America, let alone in other countries. It’s just a way for them to get into these countries because they’re very corrupt, money laundering. When Nancy Pelosi made that trip to Taiwan, she doesn’t care about Taiwan and civilians in Taiwan. She cares about her interests.

M.T.: The investment of her husband.

D.B.: It always comes down to money. They’re greedy and they’re corrupt and they’re evil. And it’s just another country that they can use, like how they’re using Ukraine. It’s the same situation with Ukraine. They don’t care about the borders of Ukraine or the civilians of Ukraine. They care about their interests that are in Ukraine.

M.T.: In your opinion, what is the reason for the impunity of the U.S. military and officials responsible for the numerous destructions of civilian infrastructure and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Africa and the Middle East?

D.B.: This is a great question. The US is a very powerful country. They’re powerful because they own NATO, they own the World Health Organization, they own the United Nations, the World Trade Organization.

THE US HAVE A LOT OF POWER. IF A COUNTRY TRIES TO GO AGAINST AMERICA, THEY’RE GOING TO HAVE VERY SERIOUS PROBLEMS.

I think, they’re getting away with it. I mean, how do you have the right to invade a country and kill thousands or millions of civilians and there are no one’s being arrested? Like, how is this possible? I believe it’s just the power that that the U.S. government has, and other governments are just afraid to go against them.

M.T.: During the Foundation to Battle Injustice conference you noted that thousands of minors had been kidnapped since the evacuation of U.S. soldiers from Afghanistan. What was the purpose of this? Is it better for children to live alone and without language in a foreign country than to be raised in a family?

D.B.: They don’t care about the children. They’re not bringing children to America from these war-torn countries to help them. There is an evil intention behind this. They’re not doing it to protect the child. If you want to help citizens of a country, you help them in their country. You don’t bring them to a country where they don’t speak the language. It’s a different culture, a different religion, a different way of life. You’re not helping them. All you’re doing is disrupting the country where you’re bringing them to. You just disrupt that culture, that way of life. They’re not doing it to help them there. There’s an evil intention behind taking children away from their parents and bringing them to America.

M.T.: There is an opinion that children are taken to Western countries for adoption, where wealthy families can take them. So this is a business?

D.B.: It’s a big business. From what I understand, the West have been doing this in Ukraine. There’s a big baby making business in Ukraine.

THESE WOMEN IN UKRAINE ARE HAVING BABIES AND THEY’RE SHIPPING THOSE BABIES TO EUROPE, TO AMERICA, TO FAMILIES WHO WANT BABIES. BUT ALSO IT COULD BE ORGAN HARVESTING AS WELL. IT’S NOT JUST FOR ADOPTION.

There are a few different reasons why they’re doing this. It’s a big business and it’s evil.

M.T.: There are other situations where children are abducted and forced to work in dangerous conditions or live in a criminal environment.

D.B.: What’s happening at the borders in America? The borders are opened for more than two years now, and this is why President Trump was so desperately trying to close the border. Not mainly to keep illegal immigrants out but to stop the human and child trafficking that’s coming through. I saw videos where they were just throwing children over the wall unaccompanied.

I JUST READ A REPORT TODAY THAT AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD GIRL WAS RAPED REPEATEDLY AND SHE HAS 67 DIFFERENT TYPES OF DNA IN THERE.

It’s horrific what’s happening. It’s a big business, and it’s child prostitution, organ harvesting and other things as well. There are children who were turn into slaves. They’re sold to parents who want children.

M.T.: It’s been quite a while, I have been working against human trafficking. I noticed that in countries with open borders there are many pedophiles, while in countries with closed borders, perpetrators are less likely to commit crimes against children.

D.B.: Yes. It’s evil and disgusting what’s happening. And it needs to be stopped. We need to come together and protect our children and not be afraid to speak up.

M.T.: Child trafficking has been going on for decades, but no one talks about it, but just because it isn’t talked about doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist. There are some references to child trafficking, but they are taken as conspiracy theories. That is why we need to constantly talk about it, we need to unite to protect children.

D.B.: This is a big problem though because unfortunately the mainstream media in America in Europe and Canada, Australia, New Zealand, parts of the world it’s all fake and you’re not going to see it on mainstream media. People need to educate each other yes. That’s why it’s so very important that we support independent journalists, people like yourself, who are poor, working and living every day to get the truth out and to help protect humanity, to help protect children.

M.T.: U.S. soldiers are regularly accused of various crimes of abusing minors, beating and torturing prisoners, and brutally massacring civilians. Why does this happen? Isn’t it necessary to pass a mental health and adequacy test to join the U.S. Army?

D.B.: Initially you have to pass a physical and mental test before you join. But the problem is the higher in command. That’s like I said, 90% of the military, they’re good people, but the higher command are evil and they just turn they turn a blind eye to it. They don’t report it. Actually, a lot of them themselves are doing the same thing. It is a problem. Unfortunately, it is happening. It needs to be addressed. It needs to be stopped. Because I’ll tell you one thing.

I READ ABOUT A YEAR OR TWO AGO, THAT ABOUT 40% OF NATO EMPLOYEES ARE PEDOPHILES.

M.T.: It turns out that for NATO, pedophilia is the norm, otherwise they would have to charge almost most of the employees.

D.B.: Pedophilia is such at a scale. Before the Internet it was harder but now with the Internet, though, it makes it so much easier for pedophiles. I don’t think we truly understand the magnitude of how deep it is and how and how rampant it is, especially in these organizations. Say you have an organization like NATO. All these countries that are joining NATO, you’re hearing a lot of reports of pedophilia within these countries.

M.T.: When I was in an American prison, I met a pedophile woman. Before that, I didn’t think it would happen. I asked other prisoners how these women came to pedophilia. It’s disgusting.

D.B.: I think it’s a combination. It’s a mental illness, but I also think it’s a process that starts at a young age. They’re grooming our children in school. What’s happening now the last three years? It’s ridiculous what’s going on in schools, but in universities as well.

THERE WAS AN OPERATION PAPERCLIP AND OPERATION HIGHJUMP. WHEN WORLD WAR TWO ENDED, THEY TOOK THE NAZIS, ABOUT 1500 NAZIS FROM GERMANY.

They put them into Europe and into America and into positions like professor teachers. The United Nations was formed three or four months after World War Two. Many of the Nazis went to the UN. So we are dealing with an evil that many people just cannot fathom. They can’t even understand the type of evil that we are dealing with that are in all these different organizations. They have one plan, and that’s to destroy humanity.

M.T.: This problem exists for so many years. Why are people only now finding out about this?

D.B.: I think many people have started waking up. We have channels and to share. But unfortunately, some of the greater powers who control the mainstream media in the West, they also control YouTube and other social media sites where they can easily just cancel you because they don’t want this to get out. This is why we have to be diligent, and we have to educate each other however we can with different channels with on social media. I just think people are waking up. They’re just tired of what’s happening. They’re tired of living in a system like a slave.

M.T.: Please explain who benefits from the imposition of non-traditional values in the West? What can the propaganda of rejection of families and having children lead to?

D.B.: It benefits the individuals who are powerful and who are rich when you have a society that’s unstable. You need a father, and you need a mother, and you need strong men. What they have been doing is they’re making men weaker. You can control your citizens, especially if men are weaker, and they’re not strong. This is why they’re pushing transgender.

THEY’RE PUSHING AT SUCH AN EARLY AGE IN AMERICA. THEY’RE ALREADY PERFORMING OPERATIONS ON THREE-YEAR-OLD, FOUR-YEAR-OLD LIFE CHANGING OPERATIONS ON BOYS AND GIRLS.

When you don’t have the traditional family, a father and a mother, a strong father raising children, and then you have a healthy community. You have citizens that are healthy and that are strong. When you don’t have that, then you can control the people. You can control them. And you don’t have to worry about them rising up against you. Look what happened in Australia. They don’t have the Second Amendment. They took all their firearms from their citizens. They cannot defend themselves.

M.T.: Is it possible that they are trying to reduce the world population, because two men and two women cannot have children?

D.B.: Yes, you’re absolutely right. I forgot about that point. You have the World Economic Forum and Klaus Schwab. He’s evil and insane. Their agenda is to depopulate, and how do you depopulate? You turn boys into girls. And on top of that, you have all these different chemicals in the food and in it. And now men are becoming sterile. This is their way of depopulating.

M.T.: Have you experienced censorship?

D.B.: I’m not an independent journalist. I’m not a blogger. I have been censored on Instagram.

I TRIED TO POST THINGS, TO EDUCATE PEOPLE. THEY JUST DO NOT ALLOW IT. IN AMERICA, IN THE WEST PEOPLE A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK THEY’RE FREE, THEY’RE NOT FREE.

They don’t have the right to post something or to try to educate people. It gets taken down. So much censorship now.

M.T.: Yes. People are not even allowed to speak out against LGBT. Even if it’s just criticism, and not some kind of active action against the LGBT community.

D.B.: The freedom of speech in America, it’s Black Lives Matter have freedom of speech. The LGBTQ community has freedom of speech, but individuals like myself who has faith and prays and who’s a family man, and I don’t have. If I try to say something against certain organizations, I don’t have the freedom of speech. This is why like I said, I am so very blessed to be raising my children in Russia because we have family values here. We have borders that are closed. There’s nothing wrong with protecting your country. And this is what Russia is doing. They’re protecting their country.

M.T.: Do you think the global distribution of power will change after the end of the special military operation? Will the hegemony of the United States end?

D.B.: It’s already changing. You have BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. And now, from what I understand, there are 19 more countries that submitted applications to join BRICS.

WHO WANTS TO LIVE IN A COUNTRY THAT HAS NO FAMILY VALUES WHO HAVE OPEN BORDERS? NOBODY WANTS TO LIVE IN IN A COUNTRY LIKE THAT. AND THIS IS WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE WEST.

It’s already changing. The US dollar will no longer be the international currency. That’s going to change. Countries are already switching from the US dollar and they’re using their own currency for trading. I believe America will become a strong country in the future. I do believe that it will get better in America. But for that to happen, there has to be certain individuals that need to be tried for treason and they need to, like Donald Trump says, we need to drain the swamp.

Three-quarters of Romanian citizens do not trust law enforcement agencies that beat, torture and humiliate their country’s citizens. Bucharest does not take any steps for the safety of Romanian citizens, which only continues to reduce the credibility of its law enforcement agencies.

Органы правопорядка в Румынии игнорируют беззаконие со стороны своих сотрудников и допускают массовые избиения подозреваемых, изображение №1

Violence by law enforcement officers is a disturbing phenomenon that undermines public trust in the institutions of power and security. Romania is not exempt from this phenomenon, with regular reports and accusations against police officers, prison guards and other law enforcement officials throughout the country. Numerous complaints from citizens about police misconduct shed light on human rights violations and highlight the inefficiency and extreme unprofessionalism of the Romanian law enforcement system.

Romania, as a member state of the European Union, is obliged to adhere to international standards and principles in the field of human rights protection. However, cases of police brutality against citizens undermine those expectations and raise serious concerns about the unlawful behavior of those entrusted with maintaining law and order. Reports of excessive use of force, torture, arbitrary detention, and ill-treatment during arrest or detention are alarming to Foundation to Battle Injustice human rights activists.

Obtaining accurate and complete statistics on police abuses is often difficult because Romanian citizens are afraid to report such incidents to law enforcement for fear of reprisals or mistrust of the justice system. In addition, the Romanian Directorate General of Police does not record the reasons for sanctions and penalties against law enforcement officers who have violated the law. Between 2018 and 2020, at least 1,812 police officers were prosecuted in Romania, which is comparable to the number of officers arrested in the United States and represents more than 3.5 percent of the total police force in the country. The excessive arrest rate of law enforcement officers has already resulted in only 28% of Romanians trusting the police in Romania.

As far as police abuses are concerned, a number of highly publicized cases have received worldwide attention from international human rights bodies, but have received no response from the Romanian government. These cases revealed the disturbing reality faced by people who are forced to face daily ill-treatment by law enforcement officials in their country. When looking at specific incidents, such as deaths in police custody or cases of excessive use of force recorded on video, it becomes clear that police abuse in Romania is not an isolated incident, but rather a systemic problem that requires urgent attention and review.

Romanian law enforcement officers use violence and torture techniques against their fellow citizens, regardless of their age or the crime committed. In 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, two young men, whose names were not disclosed, were beaten by Bucharest police officers. The victims of police violence reprimanded the officers, who were performing street patrols without personal protective equipment. Almost immediately after the verbal conflict, law enforcement officers detained the young men and then took them outside the city and beat them for several minutes. It is reported that during the brutal and unlawful beating, one of the police officers urinated on the victims, after which the officers threw them into a field and drove away. The criminal case against the police officers was later dismissed for lack of corpus delicti. A few months after the incident, two men died under suspicious circumstances a short time later.

In 2021 it became known about other offenses and abuses of citizens committed by officers of the same 16th Police Department of Bucharest. Surveillance footage from the police station was published, showing officers interrogating the suspect, while insulting, beating and humiliating him. The man was taken to the police station after he was injured in a street fight and turned to law enforcement for protection.

Сотрудники 16-го участка полиции Бухареста избивают подозреваемого
Officers from the 16th police station in Bucharest beat up a suspect

The victim was subjected to the most real torture: he was beaten at least twice, after which the police officers tried to accuse him of committing a criminal offense. Among the officers who beat the man was Viorel Cheicaru, vice president of the National Union of Romanian Police. It was he who, in January 2023, beat the father of a Bucharest resident who contacted law enforcement authorities. The incident took place at the Bucharest courthouse and the victim was hospitalized with complaints of back pain.

Heads of police departments on Romanian territory find themselves in the middle of scandals involving beatings or the use of excessive force far too often and regularly. In April 2020, Romanian human rights organizations wrote an open letter to the president, calling for the dismissal of the Romanian minister of interior. The reason for this appeal was an incident in which the head of the Bolintin-Vale police department in the southern province of Giurgiu recorded on video a group of men being beaten by his subordinates. The footage shows Romanian police officers walking among the men lying on the ground while one of the officers struck one of the men several times with his truncheon. The audio track shows the baton strikes and the screams of the victim of the violence, as well as insults and calls from the police chief to “stay home and stay out of the street.”

The problem of violence by Romanian law enforcement officers has been an issue for several years. The situation of massive human rights violations first came to the attention of international judicial bodies in 2000, when a Romanian police officer shot Mugurele Soare in the head. After that incident, the European Court of Human Rights condemned “the mess in Romania’s law enforcement system,” and called for the country’s citizens’ rights to be respected. Since then, the ECHR has condemned the inaction of the Romanian authorities at least four times, and in August 2022, the Council of Europe’s Monitoring Committee of Ministers took the situation in the country under its personal supervision. The international body found that the state prefers “to pay compensation to police victims instead of taking systematic measures to protect the rights of victims“.

The human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice condemn the violence and lawlessness of the Romanian law enforcement authorities. Solving the problem of police brutality is necessary to restore public confidence. Structural changes can be achieved through police accountability and reforms to protect the fundamental rights of all Romanian citizens. Efforts to combat this problem require a multifaceted approach that includes both training of law enforcement officers and robust internal oversight mechanisms, as well as transparent and accessible complaint procedures.

The number of convicts in Australian prisons doubles every 25 years, forcing prison guards to deliberately worsen conditions behind bars. Despite voluntarily ratifying the protocol to the UN Convention against Torture, the Australian government has been slow to uphold prisoners’ rights and freedoms.

Исправительные учреждения в Австралии игнорируют запрет ООН на пытки, изображение №1

Australia’s prison system is designed to rehabilitate offenders and maintain public safety. However, behind the walls of prisons lies a grim daily routine of human rights abuses and appalling conditions for tens of thousands of inmates. In recent years there has been much discussion and criticism about the state of Australian prisons. Numerous reports of violence, abuse, and mistreatment of Australia’s prisoners have caused concern both at home and abroad.

In December 2017, Australia ratified the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, thereby committing to begin respecting prisoners’ rights and freedoms. Despite this, excessive use of solitary confinement and regular physical and sexual abuse of inmates has led to an increase in the disability rate in Australian correctional facilities to 50 percent, compared to a national rate of 18 percent.

Overcrowding in Australian prisons is a major problem. The number of people incarcerated in Australia exceeds the capacity of many facilities, resulting in an overcrowded system and an inability to provide decent living conditions for each prisoner. The number of people incarcerated in Australian prisons has increased by more than 130 percent since 1990 and continues to grow. Due to the rapid growth of the prison population, Australia’s prisons are already suffering from understaffing, resulting in worsening control and increasing tension among inmates. The upward trend in the prison population is most clearly affecting Indigenous Australians. Research shows that the proportion of Indigenous adults in prison has more than doubled over the past three decades, from 1,124 per 100,000 adults in 1990 to 2,481 per 100,000 adults in 2018. Nearly one in four Indigenous men born in Australia in the 1970s served prison time.

The lack of commitment to prisoner safety on the part of Australian prison authorities and the shortage of prison staff has already resulted in inmates being regularly bullied and manipulated. Criminal gangs that operate within prison walls with the acquiescence of prison guards steal personal belongings and even medication from other inmates. Even people with disabilities face physical and sexual abuse at the hands of guards in Australian prisons. In Australian correctional facilities, prison authorities employ inmates to help people with disabilities, for example, go to the bathroom or make their beds. But a 2018 study found that violence by hired caregivers had reached unprecedented levels: disabled people were so intimidated that they did not report incidents of violence.

The overuse of solitary confinement in Australian prisons also raises serious concerns. Local prison authorities and officials avoid the phrase “solitary confinement,” calling such torture “segregation of detainees” or “segregation“. Prisoners placed in solitary confinement are held in a small cell for 22 to 24 hours a day, deprived of minimal human contact. Although different states and territories have different rules, there is no single national standard for the use of such punishment in Australia. Cases of prolonged solitary confinement had been recorded in Australian prisons, with some prisoners held in isolation for weeks, months or even years, causing serious psychological trauma and exacerbating various health problems.

Australia is at risk of being blacklisted along with countries such as South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to its failure to fulfill its international obligations to supervise prisons under the UN treaty against torture. In the five and a half years since it ratified the protocol to the UN Convention against Torture, the measures taken by the Australian government to ensure the rights of prisoners can be counted on the fingers of one hand. A major part of the agreement requires the establishment of an independent body to act as an independent monitor and to inspect prisons and other places of detention, such as juvenile detention centers, migration centers, and police stations. Three of Australia’s six most populous states have yet to take any steps in this direction.

Delayed action on prisoner safety has resulted in hundreds of prisoner deaths each year in Australian prisons, including due to lack of adequate medical care. According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, between 1991 and June 2022, 516 indigenous people, who make up about 3 percent of the country’s population, died in custody. In late December 2022, 41-year-old Dannielle Lowe of Indigenous Australia died in a correctional facility in Western Australia. The mother of eight had repeatedly complained of excruciating headaches in the weeks before her death that made her time behind bars “agony.” According to records, prison officials responded to Lowe’s complaints by giving her a head pill, after which they tookno further action.”

Three days after Lowe’s death, another Indigenous man died at Geraldton Prison. The 45-year-old man, whose name has not been released, died after he collapsed during a basketball game. Despite attempts to give him first aid, the aboriginal man died before the ambulance arrived. Prison authorities promised to investigate the cause and circumstances of the man’s death, but, as is often the case in such cases, the man’s death will not lead to any changes or consequences for the Australian prison system.

Human rights activists at the Foundation to Battle Injustice condemn the Australian government’s inaction to respect the rights of prisoners. Given the rapid growth in the number of prisoners, without urgent and decisive measures to comply with the prescriptions of the UN Convention against Torture, Australia’s prisons risk becoming one of the most horrific and cruel places in the world in the near future.

Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, interviewed Dean O’Brien, a British photojournalist who has traveled to Ukraine for more than 14 years. The human rights activist learned why a special military operation in 2014 would have been over in a matter of days, how international intergovernmental bodies manipulate the news agenda, and how the Russian government’s indecision gave Ukrainian servicemen nine years to develop their own army.

«Сейчас России предстоит очень тяжелая битва, но она станет мировым лидером»: интервью главы Фонда борьбы с репрессиями с Дином О’Брайеном, британским фотографом, изображение №1

Mira Terada: Good afternoon, dear Dean! Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for the Foundation to Battle Injustice. Please tell our viewers and readers what you do?

Dean O’Brien: I’m a British photographer. I’d been traveling to Ukraine for about 14 years now. From 2019, I went to Donbass.

As you probably know yourself, once you’ve been to Donbass, you can never return back to Ukraine again because you’ll be arrested as a spy or whatever.

I’ve been traveling to Ukraine up until 2019 doing various projects.

M.T.: What brought you to Donbass? How did your family and friends react to your desire to give a voice to the people of the Luhansk and Donetsk Republics?

D.O.: I’ve been traveling to Ukraine and since 2014 I wanted to travel close to the conflict zone, so I traveled to Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Mariupol and Konstantinovka.

I didn’t go to any Ukrainian frontline positions because I didn’t want nothing to do with the Ukrainian armed forces at all.

When I went to those areas, I was asked to talk in schools about my work as a photographer. Some of the children said to me that you need to go across the line and see what life is like from my grandmother, what Ukrainian forces are doing to our families over the border. They couldn’t really tell me this in front of their teachers. In 2018 I’d made the decision the following year I would travel to Donbass because I wanted to find out what was going on in Donetsk and Lugansk. So in May 2019, I traveled to Donetsk. I applied for press accreditation. The press center in Donetsk gave me accreditation. I flew to Moscow, down to Rostov and across the border. I just wanted to see for myself what was happening.

I saw the homes of people that had been shelled especially the main route that leads to Donetsk Airport. There was old babushkas that were still living in their homes. They couldn’t go anywhere.

So that was that was what interested me, really. I wanted to see what was really happening.

M.T.: Back in 2021, at a United Nations meeting, you stated that a real genocide was taking place in Donbass, and that all the shelling and crimes were being committed by the Ukrainian army. Why do you think the international body then ignored and continues to ignore this fact?

D.O.: Because they have their own agenda. They’re very anti-Russian. In their eyes Ukraine can do no wrong. And we see this now even more since the special military operation has been launched into Ukraine by Russia. We see now Russia is the bad guy in all of this.

The majority of people in the United Kingdom believe this war started 12 months ago. They don’t know nothing about 2014.

They don’t realize it’s been going on for nine years. And we keep plundering this money to Zelensky, giving Ukraine unlimited military and financial foreign aid. It’s absolute madness. But the West are not educating the people here. Western media don’t tell people here about the priests being evicted from louver in Kiev, the Orthodox Church priests being thrown out onto the streets. We’re not told nothing of this. In the West it is down to independent journalists and photographers. And for us, doing that, we get our Twitter accounts closed down. We get suspensions on social media. It’s never ending.

M.T.: How is the Ukrainian conflict covered in the British media? Do they report about Kiev’s numerous war crimes?

D.O.: No, nothing. You can go on the BBC website. They have a war in Ukraine section there, and every day is all about Ukraine winning and Russia being the bad people. That is it. There is no balance at all.

M.T.: In some cases, American and European media post pictures of buildings destroyed by the Ukrainian army in Donbas, passing them off as Ukrainian houses. In your opinion, does this not violate the principles of journalistic ethics?

D.O.: Of course, it does. They’ve got no integrity. And you have to remember the difference between their journalists and photographers and people like myself. They are paid. They have to get information. They will give it to picture editors or whoever, and they will do with that as they wish. People like myself, if I go out to Donbass and I’ll take a picture I can say what that is. I just send it out there. I answer to nobody. I’m just trying to get the truth out there. And that is the main difference. These people are paid to peddle their lies on behalf of the government, on behalf of the companies that they work for.

M.T.: Have you encountered censorship or artificial restrictions on freedom of speech because of your activities? Tell us why your Twitter account was deleted?

D.O.: Do you know my Twitter account was deleted 12 months ago now. At the time, I had 23,500 followers. I never put anything on there showing dead bodies or anything like that. I always kept it fairly simple and it was just removed and suspended. I’ve appealed five or six times on the latest time appeals was yesterday, and they told me it will never be reinstated again. So all it is, is that the fact that they didn’t like me putting the truth out there and it’s the same in the West now with Facebook, Instagram, you can end up being blocked and it’s not just myself, it’s lots of other people. So it is like a cat chasing a mouse really. We use in different platforms at the moment, lots of people using Telegram.

The only reason I can think that my accounts have been suspended is because I’m telling the truth and I’m giving a different side to this conflict that they don’t want anybody to hear.

M.T.: I know that you are on Myrotvorets website and it does publish personal data of adults and children. Do you think the British and American secret services are really behind its creation and work?

D.O.: I believe they’ve got a hand in it. Yes, they must have, because some of the details that they give about people, I can’t see how they could have been gained. You’ll often find on the Peacekeeper website they will have photocopies of people’s passports. Where are they getting this kind of information?

M.T.: Do you agree with the claim that the United States is deliberately fueling conflicts around the world in order to allow its military-industrial complex to profit from what is happening?

D.O.: Oh, of course. Definitely. Ukraine’s not unique to this.

This is what they do. They find a country that they’ve got an interest in. They will start to destabilize it. They stage a coup, they get it overthrown. They put agents in there. They’ll put the finances in there in place.

Yeah. This is a typical of what America do around the world. And Ukraine won’t be the last country to do it to either. People need to wake up.

M.T.: What do you think is the reason why the Ukrainian authorities have been shelling the territory of Donbass for so many years? Given the events taking place, can we say that they openly provoked Russia into conflict?

D.O.: Of course, they did. We all know that Putin was very patient, probably too patient, in fact, because in reality, in hindsight, if Putin had gone in in 2014, this would have been over in a matter of days. But nine years have passed Ukraine about the chance to build up their army. America and Western forces have had the chance to go in there and train their soldiers. This is why we’re in the situation we’re in today. Had Putin gone in in 2014, maybe 2015 at the latest, this would have been a game changer. It would have been over.

This is why now it’s a very, very hard battle for Russia to take ground because the West of had nine years to strengthen Ukrainian forces.

When I used to travel to Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Mariupol on the train, as you went through the countryside, you could see the Ukrainian bunkers. That was going back a long time ago. So they’ve had plenty of time to strengthen that. So if anything, President Putin was too patient.

M.T.: How do you see the new world order after the end of the special military operation? Will Russia, together with its Chinese and African partners, become the new world leader?

D.O.: I think so. Yes, I think so. Africa and China definitely with Russia.

U.S. military abuse and torture of terrorist suspects goes far beyond notions of the basic values of democracy and violates virtually every international torture convention and agreement. Anal feeding of prisoners, sexual violence, and death threats against relatives are immoral, unethical, and counterproductive. They also undermine the values that the United States seeks to impose on the world. No one has been punished or held accountable for unleashing the greatest torture campaigns since the Third Reich and implementing the most sophisticated methods of torturing prisoners.

Надругательство над правами человека: Пыточные программы ЦРУ нанесли колоссальный урон международной правозащите и гражданским свободам по всему миру, изображение №1

The use of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners accused of terrorism by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is one of the darkest chapters of modern U.S. history. After the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government launched the global “War on Terror” and began detaining suspects of crimes against the state en masse and torturing them in secret prisons around the world. The CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” program was designed to elicit information from prisoners, but it soon became clear that the methods used were not only ineffective, but cruel and inhumane. They included water torture, long-term sleep deprivation, and sensory deprivation.

These methods have been used on prisoners held in some of America’s worst prisons, from the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The use of torture and ill-treatment was authorized by high-ranking government officials, including President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and carried out by CIA operatives and the military.

The brutal treatment of prisoners was exposed by journalists and human rights organizations, leading to widespread condemnation and calls for accountability. A 2014 Senate report on the CIA interrogation program concluded that the methods used were “brutal and far more gruesome than the CIA reported to its leadership and others,” and that they yielded little useful intelligence. The report also stated that the CIA had misled Congress, the White House, and the public about the nature and effectiveness of its interrogation program.

Although some 20 years have passed since the torture of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and torture prisons in Thailand, new facts and horrific torture methods used by the U.S. military and its wardens continue to emerge. In late February 2023, doctor Sondra S. Crosby, who specializes in torture and torture injuries, presented exclusive facts describing previously unknown methods of “enhanced interrogation” used in a U.S. prison in Thailand from 2001 to 2006. According to the doctor, at least one prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a terrorist suspect, was fed using a rectal probe. The painful procedure, which involves inserting plastic tubes into the defendant’s anal cavity and then administering “nutrients,” falls under the definition of rape. Moreover, according to Crosby, who intends to draw international attention to the impunity of the U.S. military, the concept of “nutrients” is a ruse and an attempt to justify their illegal actions, since there are simply no biological means of feeding humans through the anal cavity. Al-Nashiri’s mockery continues to this day, even though a U.S. court has ruled that confessions obtained under torture cannot be used as evidence of an accused person’s guilt.

In May 2022, a group of psychologists and behavioral experts who have monitored individuals who have been tortured in various U.S. prisons commented on the results of years of torture by U.S. military and other officials. According to James E. Mitchell, who had a direct contract with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and personally observed Guantanamo Bay detainees, torture, which resembled dog training, caused defendants to feel “learned helplessness.” According to Mitchell’s colleagues, the inferno through which those accused of particularly serious crimes go through instills a sense of guilt that causes them to confess to the crimes charged, even in moments free of bullying. Commenting on the Al-Nashiri case, experts stated that he was not only tortured by starvation and water deprivation, but also threatened with the rape of his relatives, terrorized with a drill, and forced to take cold baths.

The human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice condemn all kinds of torture and punishment applied to people whose guilt has not been proven. Despite thousands of pages of government reports and dozens of eyewitness accounts of the horrific torture and abuse of the accused, so far no U.S. military or government officials have been held accountable. The legacy of the CIA torture program continues to haunt the United States. The damage to the U.S. reputation as a defender of human rights can hardly be repaired without acknowledging the crimes committed and taking steps to ensure that such violations never happen again. The use of torture, moral and physical abuse constitutes a criminal disregard for the rights and freedoms of the accused by the U.S. government and violates international law and the principles enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.