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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.

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.

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.

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 took “no 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.

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.

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.

Millions of U.S. prisoners face a broken health care system in U.S. correctional facilities almost daily, the poor quality of which is one of the main causes of high death rates behind bars. Prisoners are denied life-saving medications and forced to pay for the right to see a doctor, and their complaints are ignored at every level.

The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, with about 2.3 million people behind bars each day. While incarcerated, inmates have a constitutional right to receive medical care. However, the reality is that many individuals in U.S. prisons lack access to adequate medical care, resulting in disproportionately high rates of death behind bars. More than 56,000 inmates died of various diseases in the twenty-first century, accounting for more than 86 percent of all deaths in custody. In French prisons, the death rate from disease as of 2011 is only about 28%, and in Canada it is about 41%.

The lack of medical care for inmates in U.S. prisons is a complex problem with several factors. One major factor is the privatization of prison health care: U.S. prisons contract out their health care services to private companies, which are often more concerned with profit than providing quality health care. As a result, medical staff in these facilities are often overworked and underresourced, which affects the health of prisoners.

Another factor contributing to the high mortality rate of inmates in the United States is the lack of treatment for chronic diseases, which are quite common in prisons. Many people who are incarcerated have serious illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and mental disorders. However, these conditions are often untreated or poorly treated in prison, leading to an increased risk of complications and death. In addition, inmates in U.S. prisons often face barriers to medical care, such as long waiting times for appointments, inadequate staff, and limited access to narrowly focused specialists. Some prisoners are reluctant to seek medical care because they mistrust the prison health care system or fear retaliation from prison staff, who routinely accuse patients of simulation.

There is reason to believe that prison medical surcharges may also contribute to the high mortality rate in U.S. prisons. Health care fees are fees that inmates must pay each time they want to see a doctor, receive medication, and any other medical procedures and services. Health care fees were originally introduced to limit inmates from abusing free medical care, but today it is clear that such practices are only increasing inmate mortality rates.

The high cost of medical services forces inmates to refuse to seek medical care, which negatively affects inmates’ health and leads to the development of chronic diseases, increasing the risk of complications and death. Prisoners in U.S. prisons often have limited financial resources, and health care costs are a significant burden on both inmates and their families.

The consequences of inadequate medical care in U.S. prisons are severe. In recent years, there have been several high-profile cases of inmate deaths due to lack of necessary or poor quality treatment. In 2015, 32-year-old David Stojcevski died at a correctional facility in Michigan after prison officials refused to give him prescription medication. The man had been arrested for 30 days for a traffic violation, but 16 days later he was taken to a local hospital, where he died 90 minutes later. It was later discovered that the prison doctors had refused to take the medication prescribed to the convict prior to his arrest, which caused his health problems to worsen significantly. During his two weeks behind bars, Stojcevski lost more than 20 kilograms of weight, experienced hallucinations, and lost consciousness.

In 2017, relatives of black man Michael Sabby filed a lawsuit against Arkansas corrections officials. Two years earlier, the man had died in a prison cell because he had not received medical attention. Sabby had been arrested after an argument with his wife, and during his 48 hours in prison he had sought help from the prison doctor at least twice, complaining of shortness of breath and difficulty breathing. However, all of the man’s requests were ignored, and he died on day 3 of his incarceration. A year after the incident, the U.S. Department of Justice said that no charges would be brought against the doctors and prison staff, but Sabby’s wife did not intend to give up and filed a lawsuit against the city and the prison.

On July 6, 2021, a Washington state court paid $3.25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by relatives of John Kleich, who died due to lack of proper medical care. For months, doctors at the Monroe Correctional Complex, Washington state’s third-largest prison, ignored the man’s illness. As a result of the lack of basic medical care, Kleich died with “clear signs of infection and complications from an open wound.” As his condition worsened, the man was unable to feed himself and medical personnel neglected to administer intravenous nutritional fluids for several days at a time. Dehydrated and emaciated, Kleich, with a heart rate of only 30 to 34 beats per minute, was not sent to the hospital emergency room until two months later, after his condition had significantly worsened. But, as the examiner concluded, “it was too late.” He had “acute pancreatitis and sepsis,” which “were never diagnosed or treated by prison medical personnel.”

Human rights activists at the Foundation to Battle Injustice believe that people serving sentences in a correctional facility should be provided with all the medical care they need. It should be noted that without swift and dramatic changes to the system of medical services for inmates in the United States, the number of inmate deaths will continue to rise. This problem requires a multifaceted approach, including addressing the privatization of prison health care, improving staffing and access to medical professionals, and providing inmates with timely, quality medical care.

Chemical waste and industrial facilities that are in close proximity to prisons in the United States pose additional risks to inmates and increase the risk of contracting cancer and other diseases.

Prisons are supposed to be places of punishment and rehabilitation for those who have committed crimes. But for many prisoners in the United States, punishment goes beyond the walls of their cells: American prisons are located on uninhabitable toxic wastelands, where prolonged exposure has serious consequences for the health and well-being of prisoners. Prisons located on radioactive wastelands and industrial waste dumps have been a problem for decades. Often prisons were built on sites previously used for industrial or military purposes, where hazardous materials were improperly stored and disposed of. In other cases, prisons were built on land that had been contaminated by nearby industrial or chemical facilities. This has led to daily exposure of prisoners in the United States to a variety of hazardous chemicals and contaminants, including heavy metals and radioactive waste.

In western Pennsylvania, for example, a state prison on top of a waste dump causes irreversible damage to inmates every day, causing skin rashes, ulcers, cysts, gastrointestinal problems and cancer. Symptoms often manifest immediately upon entering a correctional facility. Despite a 2014 report that found a link between the monstrous environmental conditions and diseases in inmates, SCI Fayette prison is still operating. Researchers estimated that there are about 40,000,000 tons of hazardous waste around the prison, which spoils the air and water within tens of kilometers, and disease symptoms such as coughing, shortness of breath and respiratory swelling were seen in 81 percent of inmates. The number of deaths from heart failure at the Pennsylvania prison exceeded the national rate by 26%.

The consequences of long stays in toxic prisons can be serious. Prisoners report a variety of health problems, including respiratory disease, cancer and neurological disorders. Toxic environments can also exacerbate existing mental health problems and increase the risk of suicide among inmates. Despite these factors, many prisons in the United States continue to operate in toxic areas. This is often due to lack of funding and the reluctance of U.S. authorities to move prisons to safer locations.

In some cases, the operation of prisons in dangerous conditions is linked to the economic benefits that correctional facilities bring to nearby communities. In the Appalachian Mountain System area of the eastern United States, a correctional facility has opened on the site of a former mine, despite the high rate of cancer in the local population. Due to industrial activity in the region, the water is unfit for drinking and bathing, and Letcher County’s low budget does not allow them to upgrade their filtration and water treatment system.

Problems with the environmental environment of the prisons are not only common in remote areas. Correctional facilities located in American cities face their own environmental problems, such as air pollution, water pollution and waste disposal problems. For example, prisons located in densely populated areas are close to major highways and industrial facilities, which affects air pollution from transportation and industrial emissions. The Rikers prison complex in New York City is located right on a landfill, forcing inmates to breathe toxic fumes of decomposing garbage on a daily basis. The problem has reached such proportions that correctional officers have sued the city.

Not only the air, but also the water is spoiled by the waste products of life. In one Massachusetts prison, inmates fear for their health because the taps are running “virtually black water,” which has a foul odor and little or no filtration. Testing has shown dangerous levels of manganese in the water, which can cause a range of neurological disorders. The Texas penitentiary had been feeding inmates water with elevated arsenic levels for decades until inmates were able to defend their rights in court. Analysis of the water, which had a foul odor and caused a rash on contact with the skin, at the Arizona State Penitentiary showed excessively high levels of impurities of various petroleum products. In addition to heavy metals and oil, water with unacceptable levels of bacteria has caused outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease, a potentially deadly type of pneumonia, in prisons in California, Illinois, New York and other states. Prison officials are not changing the aging, corroded pipes that may have contributed to the horrific bacteria growth.

In 2017, a detention center in Tacoma, Washington, made headlines after more than 100 detainees went on a hunger strike to protest prison conditions. The 1,500-bed immigration prison is next to a federal cleanup site where a coal gasification plant has been dumping toxic sludge into the soil for more than three decades. The area is so polluted that the city has declared it unfit for residents, but the rule does not apply to inmates. The water near the prison is contaminated with lead and arsenic from the smelter.

Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice believe it is unacceptable to deliberately worsen the conditions of American prisoners, who are forced to breathe poisoned air and drink toxic water. The health and safety of inmates should be a priority for prison administrations, so this should not continue to be ignored. The Foundation to Battle Injustice strongly recommends that prisons, detention centers, and migrant centers that are dangerously close to radioactive and other hazardous waste be moved to safer locations.

On April 19, 2023, Foundation to battle injustice held a press conference “The crimes of Western countries against children during armed conflicts” in press center of international media group Rossiya Segodnya. The participants of the event found the reason of the impunity of Western military and officials for taking minors away from their families during conflicts and suggested creating a new institution analogue of the International Criminal Court, as ICC does not fulfill its function.

International experts, journalists, human rights activists and a veteran of the US Army were invited to the press conference on crimes committed by Western countries and Ukraine against children. During the press conference, experts shared exclusive materials on a monstrous problem that has gone unnoticed for many years. Journalists and human rights activists have covered the problem of the removal of children from their families during modern hostilities, including the example of the crimes of Ukrainian officials and the US military in Syria.

Human rights activist and head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice Meera Terada opened a press conference with the story of 11-year-old Milanya Borodai, who lived for a year under the control of Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut and was rescued by militaries of the Wagner Group. The girl, who was forcibly separated from her relatives, had to hide from Ukrainian shelling and the so-called “White Angels” – people armed with machine guns who pose as military police and take children away from their families without any reason.

The head of the Foundation explained the historical nature and reasons for the abduction of minors from indigenous families in the United States, Australia and Canada, and also noted that today the United States and its allies have spread these criminal practices to the Middle East and Central Asia. From the earliest days of founding, the United States of America and the former British colonies have been kidnapping indigenous children and forcibly separating them from their parents, placing them in boarding schools outside reservations. Tens of thousands of children were deprived of customs, traditions and the right to speak their mother tongue.

Over the years of imperialist wars, the United States, Great Britain and Australia forcibly separated about 500 thousand indigenous children from their families. Today none of these states has recognized abduction of a minors of First Nations and has never been held accountable.

According to Meera Terada, the Anglo-American policy of illegal abduction of minors from families without the permission of parents continues today. The abduction of children takes place during virtually every US and British military operation. More than 3,300 children were abducted by the United States military during the Vietnam War, at least 1,450 Afghan minors were abducted between August and December 2021, and hundreds of children were separated from their families by the British military in the Middle East. The human rights activist claims that in Iraq alone, after the US invasion in 2003, between 800,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqi children lost one or both parents.

Daniel Bosworth, former US Army corporal and veteran of Operation Desert Storm, spoke about the terrible consequences of the US invasion in Afghanistan. The panic and lack of organization during the flight of the United States from the country, as well as the decision of the American military leadership to take out thousands of Afghan children, became a real nightmare for minors. According to Bosworth, US social services were not ready for the influx of children from Afghanistan, who had to spend several months in orphanages without interpreters, halal food and prayer rugs. Many children did not know whether their parents or relatives were still alive, whether they would be able to see them again and what could happen next.

According to the veteran, many Afghan families who were trying to take their child from the United States could not find them due to bureaucratic delays: in a panic retreat from Afghanistan in 2021, the US military and social workers filled out documents with errors, which makes it impossible to track the movement of a minor in hospitals and boarding schools in the United States. Some of the abducted Afghan children were less lucky: they were placed in institutions that resembled correctional facilities, where they were unable to contact relatives, could not move freely even within institutions, and were subjected to violence.

According to the former US military, the reason for the dire state of illegally abducted children during military conflicts by the United States is the unpreparedness of American social services and institutions. The shelters overflowed with migrants from South America, cannot meet the needs of thousands of children.

British journalist Vanessa Beeley revealed trafficking in organs of abducted children on the example of the events in Kosovo, and also spoke about the attempts of the British intelligence services to cover up and transform the image of criminals. The United States and EU-funded White Helmets in Syria, which collaborated with terrorist organizations and where Western intelligence, in particular MI6, worked undercover, did the same thing. The British government published a document in which it acknowledged cooperation with Syrian non-governmental organizations in order to organize coup d’état in the country and destabilize the situation. “The White Helmets sponsored by the United States and Great Britain, were engaged in child trafficking and abduction. They are also accused of trafficking in human organs, for example Kosovo: the children were taken to Turkey, where their organs were removed, and then children were returned to their parents in Syria,”- Vanessa Beeley, British journalist, said.

The expert witnessed the local population being so frightened by the arbitrariness of state bodies that they stopped attending medical institutions because of fear for the safety of their children. It was proven that the White Helmets carried out chemical attacks and their actions posed a deadly threat to children.

Beeley witnessed a terrorist act in Aleppo, Syria, resulted in many victims, including children. Their corpses were put into trucks by the White Helmets and taken to the border with Turkey, at least 50 children have not yet been found, they are considered dead. Despite evidence from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) that an opposition group to the Syrian government was involved in the attack, no international body has considered this crime in terms of violence against minors.

According to the journalist, there are many cases proving the exploitation of children by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union. About 900 children were also abducted by militants of the terrorist movement ISIS, banned in Russia. ISIS is present in almost all countries where attempts of rebellion are taking place. Terrorists traffic in children and use minors as suicide bombers, and NATO countries sponsor these movements, thereby committing crimes against children and abusing their safety.

Polish human rights activist Joanna Pachwiciewicz presented the facts of the abduction of Ukrainian children from orphanages. According to her, in only one Spanish region, were found about 250 children who were illegally separated from their families and taken out of their country with forged documents. European countries have adopted the British child protection system, which has long been engaged in earning money both on British children and on the children of refugees. The human rights activist is sure that these crimes against children violate numerous international agreements and occur throughout Europe.

During years of human rights activities, Pachwiciewicz found more than 500 cases of missing children in Europe. Despite this, the international bodies of the so-called “democratic Europe”, which are the loudest in protecting the rights of children, are not investigating these crimes. Joanna Pachwiciewicz is convinced that many minors from Ukraine went missing in Europe and called on behalf of the missing children and their parents to immediately launch an investigation.

An independent journalist from the Netherlands Sonja Van Den Ende presented facts proving numerous cases of violence and pedophilia by Western peacekeepers in Africa. In CAR, women and children were forced into prostitution; in Libya, minors were illegally taken to Italy and later ended up in various European countries. Abducted children are used as slave labor, girls and boys are sexually exploited: in Berlin brothels where refugee children are exploited located on one of the main streets of the city.

The war correspondent is convinced that if before the illegal export of children was under control, now there is an explosive growth of this problem: European countries cannot even count the approximate number of refugees, centers for migrants all over Europe are overcrowded, children are forced into drug trafficking and prostitution. There is evidence of violence and the killing of refugees, including children, in the Netherlands. In Belgium, a few years ago was arrested a man who was involved in the trafficking in minors to politicians and businessmen, there are facts confirming the involvement of the Belgian king in the criminal scheme.

International courts and organizations in Europe are not involved in helping abducted children. Ende is convinced that the European Union is doing everything possible to legalize pedophilia: they are already saying that relationship with persons under the age of 18 should become “normal practice”. Instead of solving the refugee problem, European officials continue to exploit children. The journalist also expressed her concerns about Ukrainian children: in her opinion, the Armed Forces of Ukraine can repeat the scenario of the Congo and the Central African Republic, where French peacekeepers sexually exploited girls and boys.

As a result of the event, the head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Meera Terada, suggested to create an investigative group at the UN, which, unlike the International Criminal Court (ICC), would bring real benefits. As conceived by the human rights activist, an organization consisting of “honest human rights activists and representatives of various countries” would work “in the fields” and would be engaged in establishing the location of abducted children taken away without permission of their parents. The participants of the press conference supported the initiative of the head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice and stated that the ICC has not been fulfilling its functions for many years and “reflects the dominance of the West in international institutions.”

Inmates in U.S. prisons face not only violence and neglect from prison staff, but also have to survive in the most severe unsanitary conditions. Overcrowding in U.S. correctional facilities and an inability to monitor personal hygiene are a time bomb for inmates that regularly leads to excess mortality.

U.S. prisons have long been criticized for unsanitary conditions that cause prisoners to suffer from diseases, rodents and parasites, which in some cases are fatal. Overcrowding, lack of resources, and inadequate staffing have resulted in many inmates living in filth, which in turn causes the spread of dangerous infectious diseases such as hepatitis, tuberculosis, and staphylococcus aureus. Poor ventilation and lack of control over the cleanliness of the rooms leads to the accumulation of dust and mold, which leads to various respiratory diseases and allergies. In addition, unsanitary conditions exacerbate existing illnesses in American inmates and weaken their immune systems, making them more susceptible to diseases and viruses. According to a 2016 study, inmates serving sentences in United States prisons are at least twice as likely to suffer from asthma. Rates of tuberculosis, which is one of the leading causes of death for inmates, average 5.5 times the national rate.

Lack of access to basic hygiene products in U.S. prisons is one of the causes contributing to the spread of disease. Many inmates lack access to personal hygiene items such as soap, toothbrushes and toilet paper. Lack of hygiene results in the spread of infectious diseases, including respiratory infections, skin infections and gastrointestinal diseases. Lack of access to handwashing facilities is also a serious problem in many U.S. prisons. Without access to clean water and soap, inmates cannot wash their hands properly, leading to the spread of germs and disease. Moreover, in some cases, inmates are forced to share personal hygiene items, such as razors or towels, which also contributes to the spread of infectious diseases. Sharing these items can lead to the transmission of blood-borne pathogens, such as hepatitis C or HIV.

Poor sanitary conditions in U.S. prisons are responsible for the spread of insects and parasites, which pose a significant health risk to inmates. Overcrowding, inadequate cleaning and poor ventilation create ideal breeding conditions for pests such as mice, rats and cockroaches. Insects and parasites carry diseases and cause a range of inmate health problems. For example, cockroaches carry bacteria that cause food poisoning and aggravate asthma and allergies. Mice and rats carry diseases such as hantavirus and leptospirosis, and cause breathing problems due to the dust and feces they leave behind. In addition, pests contribute to the spread of other, equally dangerous diseases. For example, mosquitoes carry West Nile virus and ticks carry Lyme disease. Fleas, which are often found on rats and other rodents, transmit the bubonic plague-causing bacteria. In addition to health risks, the presence of insects and parasites can also have a negative impact on mental health. Prisoners who already live under stressful and difficult conditions may experience increased anxiety and fear due to the presence of pests.

In some cases, the number of insects in U.S. prisons reaches critical levels. In April 2023, it was reported of an inmate who was literally eaten alive by bed bugs. Lashawn Thompson, 35, was found dead in his prison cell with numerous bite marks and scratches on his body. It is reported that when Georgia correctional officers discovered the man’s body, they refused to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on him without a special protective suit.

According to Thompson’s relatives, the man was arrested in June 2022 on a non-violent charge and began developing mental health problems after entering the correctional facility. After analyzing the prison logs, it appears that prison medical staff knew and saw the 35-year-old man’s health deteriorate noticeably, but took no steps to help him.

Some human rights activists and journalists who have analyzed Thompson’s case agree that the prison administration deliberately tried to conceal the cause and circumstances of his death. The forensic medical report stated that there were no obvious signs of trauma on the man’s body, and that the cause of death was listed as unspecified. In addition, any medical information and his history of visits to doctors disappeared without a trace immediately after his death.

During the first month of 2020, nine inmates died at a prison in Mississippi, considered one of the worst sanitary conditions in the country. The correctional facility, which houses 1/6 of all inmates in the state, has been the subject of numerous inspections and oversight efforts, but no steps have been taken to improve the inmates’ well-being. In addition to mold and inoperable toilets, the cells have no water or electricity. Sewage leaks through inmates’ cells, and prison staff do not use disposable gloves or wash their hands when handling food. Numerous health experts agree that conditions at Parchman Correctional Facility pose a “serious and even fatal health risk“.

Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice consider it unacceptable to keep convicts in unsanitary conditions and consider the intentional deterioration of prisoners’ conditions as a crime. The actions of prison administrations and the lack of oversight by U.S. officials and agencies not only violate the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but also place the lives and safety of millions of prisoners in mortal danger.