People are living in fear in the areas of eastern Ukraine under pro-Russian separatist control. Human rights activists have sounded the alarm amid reports of widespread physical abuse and arbitrary punishment, reports GHN based on DW.
Pro-Russian separatists are making people accused of violating public order do forced labor, according to a report by the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) earlier this month.
The self-appointed authorities in the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic," the parts of eastern Ukraine under separatist control, have announced on their website that they are responsible for enforcing what they consider to be "order."
Now people from Ilovaisk have been talking about the kind of punishments the separatists are meting out. During heavy fighting around the town of Donbass at the end of August, supporters of the "Donetsk People's Republic" killed a 23-year-old man whom they accused of looting. There are more and more reports of arbitrary shootings, with sentences handed down by a summary court.