The ‘sanitary’ torture of Russian prisons

Strong-arm tactics have become a systematic means of pressure, especially against Russian political prisoners. A Mediazona investigation tells the stories of those who have been subjected to violence in Russian prisons to extract forced confessions.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - Accusations of repression and violence in Russian lagers and prisons are regularly dismissed by Putin politicians, who speak of ‘minimal sanitary measures’ necessary to avoid the dangers of extremism in this difficult period of the ‘special military operation’, as President's advisor Valery Fadeev put it. A report by Andrej Karev, Mediazona ‘s correspondent for the judiciary, highlights how the days of the worst Soviet persecutions are actually not so far away, so much so as to speak today of “Putinist terror”.

As the UN Special Rapporteur, Mariana Katsarova, also states, torture and strong-arm tactics are now systematic instruments of pressure in Russia, especially against political prisoners, those who speak out against the war, representatives of ethnic minorities and anyone who dares to criticise the regime in force. There is a return to the repression of the inakomysljascye, the ‘differently thinking’, as dissidents were called in Brezhnev's time, using violence to obtain forced confessions and spread fear throughout the population.

Ibrahim Orudzev, a student sentenced to 16 years for preparing attacks and spreading terrorist tendencies, recounted in the courtroom in Moscow that he was subjected to torture by prison guards. After 10 days of administrative arrest for resisting a public official, he was confronted on his way out of the detention cell by ‘a mysterious police employee in a mask’, who patted him on the back with a rather threatening expression and invited him to sit in the car. Waiting for him in the car were two other men, probably members of the FSB, who put a shoe bag over Ibrahim's head, holding him in handcuffs. They explained that they had been observing him for some time and were ‘displeased with his behaviour’, and began to beat him on the back with very vulgar and humiliating expressions, the mildest of which was ‘only your mum thinks you are a good-looking boy, in reality you are of no use to anyone’.

Arriving at the interrogation site, his ‘curator’ was waiting for him in the courtyard, who began beating him with a spring-loaded truncheon with a steel ball, and the treatment lasted for the entire night. Amid threats, Ibrahim was told that ‘we have been ordered to break two of your fingers’, and when it was made clear in court that all fingers were in place, the judge scornfully joked that ‘someone will have to be punished for failing to comply with orders received’. The next morning a guard appeared before Orudzev with a syringe, declaring that he would ‘inject him with the AIDS virus’ if he did not ‘tell them everything’.

Another testimony collected is that of 23-year-old Gerej Dzamalutdiov, a resident of Dagestan accused for the riots at Makhackala airport on 29 October 2023, who claims that he was arrested by mistake, but was forced to plead guilty under heavy pressure. During the attempted anti-Semitic pogrom, a shop's camera caught him leaving his night shift, and the next day he was stopped by policemen for a document check. Since he did not have his passport with him, Gerej was taken straight to the police station, where he was charged with hooliganism and also went through the ‘medical treatment’ of corporal violence, until he admitted to participating in the airport riots. As the young man was quite robust and resilient, in addition to torture it was necessary to threaten him with drug trafficking charges, with packages of narcotics ‘found’ among his personal belongings.

Many other stories are reported by the service, such as that of 41-year-old Evgenija Konforkina, who was convicted of high treason after trying to bring horses from Ukraine to her racecourse, where she works as an instructor. Relatives do not know where she is currently being held, and fear for her life; as had happened to the dissident-martyr Aleksej Naval'nyj, ending up in the ‘meat mincer’ of Putin's prisons and lagers can become a nightmare from which there is no awakening.