GULAGU.Net Documents Tortures and Rapes of Prisoners; Regime Responds with Investigations and Denial of Service Attack on Portal

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 5 – The “No to the GULAG” portal has obtained 40 gigabytes of video materials showing jailors and FSB officers torturing and raping prisoners. The Russian authorities have responded by launching investigations and bringing charges against the officers and also by carrying out denial of service attacks against the site.

            The organization gained access to these materials as the result of the work of a former prisoner who managed to penetrate the computers of the Federal Penal Service in Saratov Oblast, a sign that the authorities themselves filmed these events and thus knew about them for some time (meduza.io/feature/2021/10/05/gulagu-net-poluchil-sekretnyy-arhiv-s-zapisyami-pytok-v-rossiyskih-koloniyah-opublikovano-video-iznasilovaniy-treh-zaklyuchennyh).

GULAGU.Net is issuing the materials in stages. Last month it put out five photographs showing torture and rape. And so more material is set to be released over the coming days and weeks. The officers have not been identified by name but their uniforms indicate they were part of the FSB as well as the Penal Administration (zona.media/news/2021/10/04/otb-1).          

Not surprisingly, the pictures available so far have sparked outrage. And even Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says that the situation must be investigated and those involved brought to justice if what the pictures appear to show proves to be the case. Some investigations have been launched and several cases opened.

But there are already indications that the powers that be are closing ranks to protect the guilty. A member of the public oversight commission in Saratov says that no one in the prison hospital where the attacks allegedly occurred ever complained to members of his group, raising questions as to the accuracy of the films.

And activists at the GULAGU.Net portal say that as soon as they released the documents, their site began to be subjected to denial of service attacks, something clearly intended to reduce the number of people who can visit and view this latest documentation of abuse of prisoners by the jailors and the FSB.