Witnesses Against War #18: PriZoners. Criminal choices of the Russian regime

12 July 2022 Source: Witnesses Against War Witnesses Against War is an anonymous international group of journalists, writers, historians and translators, who live in Moscow and London. For reasons of security,…

Continue ReadingWitnesses Against War #18: PriZoners. Criminal choices of the Russian regime

Russia plans to build multi-purpose prison camp settlements. Commentaries by Ilya Shablinsky, Valery Borshchev and Sergei Pashin [Argumenty i fakty]

14 October 2022 Sergei Pashin (pictured left) says: 'This is a bad kind of 'unification,' when innocent people, who are only under detention to await trial, are lumped in together…

Continue ReadingRussia plans to build multi-purpose prison camp settlements. Commentaries by Ilya Shablinsky, Valery Borshchev and Sergei Pashin [Argumenty i fakty]

Irina Biriukova on torture in Russian prison colonies: ‘Any complaint provokes extraordinary resistance’

28 November 2022 Irina Biriukova, a lawyer with the Public Verdict Foundation and laureate of the Moscow Helsinki Group’s human rights award, in conversation with Katya Orlova of Novaya gazeta…

Continue ReadingIrina Biriukova on torture in Russian prison colonies: ‘Any complaint provokes extraordinary resistance’

Eva Merkacheva: Dismantling the Public Oversight Commissions – Torture’s supporters are now the public defenders

28 September 2022 by Eva Merkacheva, MK correspondent, laureate of the Moscow Helsinki Group prize Source: Moscow Helsinki Group [original source: MK] After facts of torture in the Saratov prison tuberculosis…

Continue ReadingEva Merkacheva: Dismantling the Public Oversight Commissions – Torture’s supporters are now the public defenders

Ilya Shablinsky: “Our law enforcement structures […] no longer feel bound by any restrictions, or even the Constitution.” [Nezavisimaya gazeta]

12 May 2022 by Ekaterina Trifonova, 'Stamped “official use only,” Constitution and laws change: The Russian citizen has been transformed from a subject of the law to an object of…

Continue ReadingIlya Shablinsky: “Our law enforcement structures […] no longer feel bound by any restrictions, or even the Constitution.” [Nezavisimaya gazeta]

Valery Borshchev on the new internal rules for prisons: “The bad habits that go with the profession and the repressive mindset of prison officers are such that they are unlikely to endeavour to comply with the new rules”

Valery Borshchev 31 March 2022  by Ekaterina Trifonova, correspondent for Nezavisimaya gazeta Source: Moscow Helsinki Group [original source: Nezavisimaya gazeta, 31 March 2022] Prisoners will hope for the best where…

Continue ReadingValery Borshchev on the new internal rules for prisons: “The bad habits that go with the profession and the repressive mindset of prison officers are such that they are unlikely to endeavour to comply with the new rules”

Lev Ponomarev: On the possibility (impossibility) of investigating torture in Russia

21 January 2022 By Lev Ponomarev, human rights defender, member of the Moscow Helsinki Group [Lev Ponomarev has been included by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in…

Continue ReadingLev Ponomarev: On the possibility (impossibility) of investigating torture in Russia

Aleksandr Podrabinek: On Vladimir Osechkin’s latest publication

5 January 2022 Source: Facebook For all the undoubted necessity of exposing the systematic torture in Russian prisons and penal colonies, Vladimir Osechkin's latest publication raises questions about the priorities,…

Continue ReadingAleksandr Podrabinek: On Vladimir Osechkin’s latest publication

Lev Ponomarev: “A colonel no more.” Putin’s new decree

9 December 2021 by Lev Ponomarev, human rights defender, member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, head of the civil rights project For Human Rights Source: Moscow Helsinki Group [original source: Эхо…

Continue ReadingLev Ponomarev: “A colonel no more.” Putin’s new decree

Aleksandr Podrabinek: The Prisoner’s Reply

15 December 2021 by Aleksandr Podrabinek Source: Grani.ru The intense public reaction to torture in Russian prisons and prison camps has reverberated in the prisoner world in a somewhat unusual…

Continue ReadingAleksandr Podrabinek: The Prisoner’s Reply