Inmates in Russian prisons are beaten, tortured and raped while living in total isolation for more than 12 hours a day, a journalist who has investigated Vladimir Putin’s penal colonies has claimed.
Arkady Ostrovsky, the Economist’s Russian and Eastern Europe editor, has described the brutal treatment inmates face once confined in these prisons.
Speaking on the outlet’s ‘The Intelligence’ podcast, he said: “We have been hearing a lot about Russian penal colonies because of Alexei Navalny who died in a penal colony where he was effectively murdered on February 16th.
“I was struck by how varied conditions are. There are some penal colonies that are not great places to be, but you can live there. You can use electronic mail, you can order food, have access to shops.
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“Then there are some prisons that are absolutely horrific. And within those prisons conditions can vary.”
Navalny was jailed on a 19 year prison sentence for ‘extremism’ charges having emerged as Putin’s main opposition in Russia.
During his time behind bars, reports claimed that Navalny was subjected to all kinds of physical and mental abuse. This allegedly included guards playing the Russian national anthem in his cell non-stop.
Ostrovsky also describes the awful conditions in some prisons, adding: “For professional criminals they could be in a common cell…to solitary confinement. Basically, you have 24 hours. Of those, you have eight hours where you can use the bed.
“You are allowed an hour and a half of writing letters…an hour and a half of walking, you are allowed one book. So for 12 hours a day, and more sometimes, you are by yourself in a cell that is two metres by three metres.
“The whole thing is deeply humiliating. Men are allowed to shower once a week, women twice a week. Some cells have toilets, some don’t. Some have a hole in the wall.
“Torture and humiliation comes in many different forms. It can be physical – beatings, torture and rape – it can be being subjected to total isolation and silence.
“The purpose is to create fear and to break people’s will.”
A National Geographic documentary called ‘Inside Russia’s Toughest Prisons’ has also shared insight from Russia’s notorious Black Dolphin prison, located near the border with Kazakhstan.
Guard Denis Avsyuk said: “The main crime committed by the convicts here is murder. But we also have maniacs, paedophiles, and terrorists.
“To call them people, it makes your tongue bend backwards just to say it. I have never felt any sympathy for them.”
Nikolai Astankov – who spent time in the prison – added: “You are constantly being filmed in your cell, so you’re being watched around the clock.
“Also, there are light and motion detectors, plus every 15 minutes a guard goes through the cells so you must constantly be attentive.”
