Ever More Russian Women Being Sent to Prison for Political Crimes and Then Mistreated, OVD-Info Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 1 – Since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, ever more Russian women have been convicted on trumped-up political charges and sent to prison where they are routinely mistreated by guards and other officials, according to experts at the OVD-Info monitoring organization.
    More than half of all women sentenced to prison following conviction for political charges since 2012 have been sentenced since February 2022, 412 of 735, the monitoring group says (rfi.fr/ru/россия/20241201-в-россии-десятки-женщин-политзаключенных-за-что-их-отправляют-за-решетку-каково-им-приходится-в-системе-фсин).
    In contrast to men’s places of imprisonment, those were women are held are controlled exclusively by prison officials rather than power being shared between the guards and groups of ordinary prisoners. On the one hand, that means that direct physical abuse is less; but on the other, it means that the guards are exclusively responsible for the level of mistreatment.
    According to OVD-Info, women prisoners in Russia suffer from all the other kinds of mistreatment that their male counterparts do; but in addition, they suffer because in most cases, the guards refuse to adjust their schedules or provide medicines and supplies that women specifically need.
    That seldom gets much attention, the experts say; but it is a violation of the rights of women prisoners in Russia and should be exposed and condemned by those who track the state of the incarcerated in Russia today.