Systematic Torture

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7068, 30 January 1933, Page 7

Systematic Torture

POLES PERSECUTE UKRAINIAN NATIONALISTS TALES OF MEDIAEVAL TERROR FROM THE PRISONS United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, Jan. 27. The Sun says that the Poles have organised systematic and deliberate oppression of Ukrainians, which the Lcnguo Assembly is shortly expected to consider. It has becomo much worse in the last year. The persecution varies from petty obstruction and chicanery to barbarous inhumanities on prisoners, -which the Western mind can hardly conceive, yet which are commonplaces in Polish Ukraine. Five lads under twenty years of age were tried at Przemysl for belonging to a Nationalist organisation. They confessed after torturo in which their hair was pulled out and they were not allowed to sleep for nights. The soles of their feet were beaten, which is one of the most common tortures in the prisons, the pain being excruciating. Another Ukrainian, named Kassak, suspected of complicity in the murder of a Polish politician, was tied to a bench face downwards, his feet wrapped in wet xags, and the soles of his foet beaten, which inflicts intolerable agony, hut leaves no sear. Kassak was then turned over and beaten on the stomach. He was gagged, and water was poured into his nostrils until Ids stomach was distended and the sensations of drowning produced. Details of other tortures a-pplied to peasants suspected of nationalism arc unprintable. Even children have been arrested. There were over a hundred executions last year for political offences, of which many of the accused were innocent.