Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 7 – Many people of
good will around the world have been horrified by the case of Rizvan Ibragimov
who has been subject to electro-shocks and other forms of torture for writing a
history of Chechnya challenging the version approved by Ramzan Kadyrov, but
they have dismissed such crimes as “Chechnya specific” (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/302255/).
But two researchers who have
examined the issue of mistreatment of prisoners in Russia, Aleksandr and Olga
Belyaev, say that is a mistake because torture is now widespread in the Russian
penal system and that, in their view, “Putin’s GULAG is more horrible than
Stalin’s” (akirama.com/2017/05/06/3565/).
The Russian penal
facilities in Chelyabinsk oblast, they say, are “known among thousands of
convicts as ‘the gestapo.’” They will do
almost anything to avoid being sent there, apparently including taking their
own lives lest they fall victim to the tortures there that are so horrific that
it is difficult to imagine exist in the 21st century, even in
Russia.
On the basis of reports compiled by
prisoner rights groups, testimony from former prisoners, and their own
investigation, jailors in Chelyabinsk have tortured prisoners, including
sexually, refused them necessary medical treatment, and threatened those who
complained with a repetition. (Complaints to Moscow, the two say, are simply
returned to the jailers.)
To cover their tracks, the two
investigators continue, jail officials frequently falsify records to show that
those they have beaten have in fact fallen down stairs and injured
themselves.
According to Mikhail Yermuraki, a
former inmate who was paroled one day before the end of his 13-year term so
that the authorities could re-arrest him, “beatings and tortures have acquired a
mass character in all Russian penal institutions in Chelyabinsk.” Some tortures
have even taken place in prison clinics and with the connivance of the medical
personnel there.
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