Post date: Sep 28, 2013 9:31:55 PM
Russia's Presidential Human Rights Council activist confirms claims by jailedPussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova that inmates at her prison are subject of abuse and inhumane treatment.
MOSCOW, RUSSIA (SEPTEMBER 28, 2013) (REUTERS) - Ilya Shablinsky, member of Russian Presidential Council on Human Rights confirmed on Saturday (September 28) Nadezhda Tolokonnikova's information about violations and abuses at the penal colony where she is serving term.
Shablinsky visited Corrective Colony No. 14 in the Mordovia region, southeast ofMoscow last Wednesday where he spoke to Tolokonnikova and other inmates."I got serious enough reasons to suggest that assessments in Tolokonnikova's letter reflect the reality, or to a great extent reflect the reality," said Shablinsky in an interview with Reuters.
A jailed member of Russia's Pussy Riot punk band started a hunger strike on Monday, September 23, to protest against "slave labor" in her penal colony and said she had received a death threat from a senior prison official.
In a letter circulated by her husband Piotr Verzilov she said inmates at the colony were forced to work up to 17 hours a day sewing police uniforms. She said workers received no more than four hours sleep a night and prison officials used senior inmates to enforce order in a system reminiscent of Soviet-era Gulag forced labor camps.
Collective punishment, increasing production quotas and cases of violence against those who failed to deliver were common in the penal colony, where living conditions failed to meet human rights standards and Russian law, she wrote.
The Mordovia region's prison authorities accused Verzilov and Tolokonnikova's lawyer, Irina Khrunova, of blackmail and of trying to put pressure on the penal colony to give the musician special treatment.
But Shablinsky confirmed Tolokonnikova's claims: "It's a remnant of Gulag, in the full sense of this word. It is a conveyor which uses free slave labour of people who do not have any rights, no rights at all. She attracted attention to this issue. We paid attention, wrote about it, spoke about it, now probably we have to put together some kind of recommendation for the Council (Presidential Council on Human Rights). But then it will be all forgotten. And what will happen to her? I would like for her to serve this sentence and remain in good health."
Shablinsky said that during a meeting on Wednesday Tolokonnikova, despite being on hunger strike was "energetic, but pale".
"The energy evaporates very fast, so of course they had to move her to a hospital, because in this place according to the rules she could not lay down, she didn't have the right to lay down," he said.
At a meeting Tolokonnikova spoke about violations of inmates' rights by the colony's administration, in particular about ban on washing.
In a video of his meeting with Tolokonnikova Shablinsky says "We are talking about a very private issue that to observe personal hygiene in a penal colony is forbidden, it is a reason to be penalised, is it so? have I understood you correctly?"
"Yes, this is true, moreover, as I understand, it is know-how of this particular penal colony, because the code of conduct of correctional institutions does not say that one cannot wash, but there is another paragraph which prohibits creating poor sanitary conditions in colony's rooms and the administration of this penal colony is using this clause," replies Tolokonnikova, who according to her husband was transferred to hospital at the penal colony.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was sentenced to two years in jail in August 2012 after performing what the band called a "punk prayer" in a Moscow cathedral in a protest against President Vladimir Putin amid mass street protests against his rule.
Tolokonnikova said she had asked the regional arm of the federal Investigative Committee to probe a senior prison official whom she quoted as saying after a complaint about conditions: "You will surely never feel bad again because it is never bad in the other world."
The committee's regional unit said it was looking into the accusations.
Kremlin critics say the sentencing of Tolokonnikova and two other band members is part of a crackdown on dissent since Putin returned to presidency for a third term in May 2012.
The Pussy Riot protest offended many in the mostly Russian Orthodox country but their treatment has also won them high-profile support in the West, including from celebrities such as Madonna and ex-Beatle Paul McCartney.
Tolokonnikova is due for release in March, as is fellow band member Maria Alyokhina. A third band member had her sentence suspended.
Alyokhina went on hunger strike in the summer after officials prevented her from attending a parole hearing. She was hospitalized in late May and ended her protest days after prison authorities agreed to her demands, Verzilov said.