Russian Jailors Twist Law Intended to Protect People from False Charges into Weapon Against Prisoners, Rights Activists Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 5 – The article in the Russian criminal code which imposes up to three years imprisonment for making false charges against someone, a measure intended to prevent innocent people from being charged, is now being used by Russian jailors as a weapon to keep prisoners from complaining about abuse, human rights activists say.

            They report that jailors are threatening to invoke this provision of Russian law and add to the sentences of those already incarcerated if they complain about abuse they are suffering, journalist Aleksandr Semenova reports in a new article (mbk-news.appspot.com/suzhet/statya-za-zavedomo-lozhnyj-donos/).

            Ivan Melnikov, who monitors conditions of the incarcerated in the Russian Federation, says such cases are relatively rare in the jails of Moscow but increasingly common in correction colonies because rights activists have far less access to the prisoners there and the jailors know they can get away with more illegal actions.

            Igor Kalyapin, a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council and head of the Committee against Torture, agrees.  Prisoners in camps find it difficult if not impossible to bring charges against jailors for crimes committed by the latter, the jailors know that, and they increase their ability for abuse by threatening to bring charges against prisoners who complain.

            This phenomenon is not yet massive, Kalyapin says. But it is worrisome because each time the jailors succeed in imposing additional charges in this way, they make it less likely that any prisoner will dare complain.  And they make it more likely that others in the Russian penal system will use it as well.

            The MBK journalist reports that this technique is now being used by police in the course of investigations in detention centers.  If someone complains about especially harsh interrogation techniques, the police threaten to bring this charge against them, something that is usually enough to keep them quiet and force them to cooperate.

            The police also use this threat to extract confessions, possibly false in and of themselves, to help the authorities look good by solving especially serious high-profile crimes, prisoner rights groups say. Indeed, this form of the corruption of the system may be especially evil because it uses a law against false charges to get Russians to make them.

            The police and prosecutors are quite willing to use this law – according to a report from 2016, they succeeded in getting “about 3,000” convictions under its provisions (zona.media/article/2016/02/12/codex-306); and consequently, bringing this charge against those in jail is an entirely credible threat.