The human rights organization Amnesty International used the “testimonies” of people who were in prisons or filtration camps in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine to prepare the highly-criticized report on the Armed Forces of Ukraine allegedly endangering civilians, according to the Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communications.
The StratCom Center says that it has become known that independent journalists and volunteers of Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts were involved in the process of collecting evidence. However, most of the materials for the report were received from Ukrainians who were deported to the Russian-occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts or Crimea.
In particular, Amnesty International collected the materials on the territory of filtration camps and prisons, the survey was conducted among those “willing” to provide this kind of information.
“Therefore, such information, collected on the premises of the camps, shouldn’t have been used at all in the preparation of the report since such interviews were selected under obvious pressure from Russia’s security forces,” the Center wrote.
In some cases, according to the Center, a “proper” interview of this kind was the only chance to pass the filtration and leave the occupied territories.
“In addition, the materials collected by journalists and hired volunteers were also checked by the administration of institutions and, in some cases, by employees of Russia’s FSB [security service],” StratCom says.
