Torture isn't Hidden. It's Organized.
Survivors fight back: A landmark conviction, new UN Survivor's Charter, plus dystopian UK prisons, a US perpetrator rebrands—what six stories reveal about torture today.
Ukraine: New testimony on thousands disappeared into torture system
Source: Ukrainian civilians abducted, tortured in Russian prisons
April 11, 2026 | DW
Tags: Ukraine, Clandestine Russian prisons, Activatica, Political prisoners, Enforced disappearance
Armed men in masks started disappearing Ukrainian civilians into Russian prisons over 10 years ago, after pro-Russian separatists, backed by the Kremlin, declared zones of eastern Ukraine the “Donetsk People’s Republic.” With the Russian military invasion in February 2022, thousands more were abducted.
“[Civic actors] are a threat to the occupiers because they could potentially become the nucleus for organized resistance,” explains Savva, adding that mass arrests also intimidate the citizenry. “You literally demonstrate that the same thing can happen to anybody, that you can just be disappeared,” —Mikhail Savva of Ukraine’s Center for Civic Liberties
Human rights groups and filmmaker Evgenya Chirikova estimate up to 30,000 are being held in prisons known for systematic torture. There they await politically motivated trials.
Activatica’s investigation Prisoners, Part Two details what is known about their treatment, conditions and locations. A vote in the European Parliament condemning Russian detention of Ukrainian civilians came one week after the debut of Part One. At the time only 600 Ukrainians had been released from the system of Russian prisons featured in the report.
The Prisoners, Part 2: The System of Terror {Eng. subtitled]
A torturer’s second act—and a survivor still paying the price
Source: What the CIA’s “Queen of Torture” did next
March 25, 2026 | The New Statesman
Library: ProQuest Database | New Statesman, Vol. 155, Issue 5849 (Mar 27-Apr 9, 2026): 34-41.
Tags: Khaled el-Masri, Alec Station, CIA black sites, Alfreda Bikowsaky, Freda Scheuer
Author Faye Curran profiles former CIA Chief of Alec Station alongside one man she rendered to torture: Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen grabbed off a tour bus by mistake and tortured for five months.
Over the years, he has found himself searching for Bikowsky online. “She was rewarded for her work, and I have been punished as a victim,” he says.
Opening with a description of Alfreda Bikowsky drinking wine and talking books with her (ex-CIA) husband, the article depicts a woman resolutely proud of her contributions to the war on terror. Bikowsky foregrounds her work as a life coach to women who are moving on from professions in military or law enforcement ($397 for three sessions or $597 for six sessions).
The article quickly becomes an overview of Bikowsky’s role, under a number of aliases, in the response to the 9/11 strikes and the CIA use of severe torture techniques from 2001-2009. A relentless and influential defender of CIA torture, she testified repeatedly to the value of life-saving intelligence it extracted. Analysis dismissed each such claim as false in the 2014 Senate Intelligence Report on “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” (Torture Report).
Bikowsky moved to CIA clandestine operations in 1990. In the wake of September 11, 2001, she was named deputy chief of Alec Station—a special unit targeting Osama Bin Laden. By 2003 she headed the group. Though not an interrogator, she is understood to be the woman dubbed the Queen of Torture in one account and, in another, the one determined to “be in the room” during the torture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Routinely promoted and decorated with the agency’s highest honors, she retired after 33 years. Now she rebrands.
“CIA’s inspector general launched an investigation and concluded in 2007 that there had been no legal basis for el-Masri’s rendition—a startling confession. There will be no apology.”
Life is not as good for Khaled el-Masri, a German car salesman of Lebanese descent, who was abducted in Macedonia in 2003 and transferred to a CIA black site known as the Salt Pit. It was known for constant darkness, continuous loud music, regular beatings, and fatal cold. Throughout his five-month ordeal, several jailers sent word they believed him there by mistake, but the deputy chief insisted otherwise. More than twenty years later, his life has been profoundly altered by his torture. Unable to work for a living, he suffers from a painful disease of the nervous system and struggles with anger. Volatile outbursts in Germany, attributed to his trauma, have cost him money and jail time. He now lives in Austria. The European Court of Human Rights denounced his capture and torture in 2012 and found Macedonia responsible for his treatment and transfer to the CIA. The US court system refused to hear his claims.
Survivors drive new UN charter on recognition, reparations, and prevention
Source: Torture survivors push for landmark charter to turn rights into reality
March 16, 2026 | UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights
Tags: Survivors, Accountability, United Nations, Rehabilitation
Survivor expertise and experience led the development of a new UN Charter on the Rights of Victims and Survivors of Torture. Presented to the UN Human Rights Council by Alice Edwards, UN Special Rapporteur for Torture, the “Survivor’s Charter” is the culmination of three years of hearings held in Kathmandu, Nairobi, and Bogotá and 120 submissions from survivors. Edwards aims for implementation in the next five years.
“Survivors have not asked for performative sympathy — they have asked for legal recognition, for rehabilitation that actually reaches them, and for justice that does not become another form of harm,” -- UN Special Rapporteur Alice Edwards
The document calls for real survivor participation in decision making about services meant to protect and care for others. It advances measures to ensure timely access to services, recognition of their unique needs in rehabilitation, and an end to justice procedures that re-traumatize.
Report condemns “irremediably flawed,” endless UK prison terms, again
Source: IPP prisoners subjected to ‘inhuman treatment’ under ‘dystopian’ UK system, major report to UN warns
25 February 2026 | The Independent
Tags: Prison suicide, United Kingdom, UN Convention Against Torture, Prison accountabiity
On average, they have each served 516 per cent of their original minimum term.
The notoriously indeterminate prison sentences that hold UK men for decades were taken off the books in 2012, but some 2400 men sentenced before that date remain under vague “Imprisonment for Public Protection” orders or IPP.
A report to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture in February detailed the inhuman and degrading treatment of eight neurodiverse men, called for their immediate release or resentencing, and denounced the “dystopian” bind that prevents the Parole Board from revisiting or removing their classification as dangerous.
“The open-ended punishments, which have been linked to almost 100 suicides in prison, have been compared to a “gulag system” for trapping thousands without a release date, including some for minor crimes.”
Another report to the UN working group on arbitrary detention addressed the plights of five additional prisoners. Successive UK governments have failed to face the scandal or remedy the situation despite a bipartisan review in 2022 that found IPP “irremediably flawed” and called for resentencing.
LA jury convicts Syrian general on torture and conspiracy to torture
Source: Former Syrian prison chief convicted in landmark torture trial in LA
March 18, 2026 | Iowa Public Radio
Tags: Syria, Bashar al-Assad, prison accountability, Anti-torture activism, Los Angeles
Intercepted making his way to a Los Angeles airport departure gate, Samir Ousman Alsheikh was arrested on charges of torture, conspiracy to torture and immigration fraud in 2024. He held a one-way ticket to the Middle East.
“He didn’t count on a dedicated network of Syrian activists.”
Credit for that coup goes to a team of Syrian activists who reported his presence in Los Angeles in 2022, and a network of former prisoners who located witnesses willing to testify. The trial was monitored in the courtroom by law students participating in Loyola’s Justice for Atrocities Clinic.
“This is a guilty verdict for a man who was close to President Assad and his family and had privilege and power” -- Mouaz Moustafa, Syrian Emergency Task Force.
In March, Alsheikh faced survivors detailing his crimes. He was convicted on all counts in a landmark trial. He is the first high-ranking Syrian official held to account for crimes of the regime in the wake of 14 years of war. It is only the fourth trial invoking a US statute enabling prosecution for torture that occurred abroad. The US is a 1994 signatory of the UN Convention Against Torture. Alsheikh was chief of the Adra Prison, Damascus from 2005-2008.
Related case in the UK:
Men expelled to CECOT demand reparations for torture and wrongful detention
Source: Venezuelans deported by US detail fresh claims of torture and abuse at El Salvador mega-prison
March 26, 2026 | The Guardian
Tags: Enforced disappearance, Accountability, United States, El Salvador, CECOT
Eighteen men expelled from the US and interned in the notorious Salvadoran mega-prison without charge filed a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in March. They cited torture and abuse and seek reparations as well as psychiatric and psychological resources, asking that El Salvador be declared in breach of its obligations under the American convention on human rights.
A total of 288 men were expelled from the US to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, in March 2025. Of these, 252 men were returned to Venezuela and released, while 36 Salvadoran men remain imprisoned incommunicado, whereabouts unknown.
“He was beaten dozens of times during his four months of incarceration...But in neighboring cells, he said, detainees were beaten more than 100 out of the 125 days that they were incarcerated. ‘We could hear them screaming in pain.’”
The majority of men expelled to CECOT had no record of violent offenses, many with legal immigrant status or no criminal records in the U.S. or elsewhere.
Related:
Andry Hernández Romero and five other men file claims against US DHS
Neiyerver Adrián León Rengel’s suit against the United States for $1.3 million
Pseudonym “Johnny Hernandez” files intent to sue U.S. for $56 million