Human rights defenders unveil new footage of torture in Saratov prison hospital

As noted by Interfax, public figures released evidence confirming at least four more episodes of violent actions and torture, torture and humiliation in OTB-1 of the Federal Penitentiary Service in the Saratov region.

"This video and other materials that are at our disposal and are also at the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia (FSIN) prove that grave and especially grave violent crimes were regularly committed against prisoners, which were carefully concealed", - the news agency quotes a commentary on the videos.

The Federal Penitentiary Service announced the beginning of an official check on the facts of torture, torture and cruel rape of prisoners undergoing inpatient treatment in a prison tuberculosis hospital in the Saratov region the day before, on October 5. This happened after first human rights activists and then many media published photos and video evidence of the horrific torture taking place in the penitentiary system of the Saratov region.

The footage depicted patients being raped with a mop, beaten, made victims of sexual violence by other prisoners. At the same time, the footage shows that some of the victims of violence and torture are in an absolutely helpless and humiliated state. Their arms and legs are tied. Some are stretched out as if they were crucified. The footage shows that some victims, shortly before the violence, underwent abdominal surgery: the abdominal cavity of one of the tortured was covered with a gauze bandage.

On the facts of the publication of heartbreaking evidence of abuse of people in the colony, the investigation opened a criminal case on violent acts of a sexual nature committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy (clause "a", part 2 of article 132 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov stated the need to "sort out" the situation with torture and rape of prisoners in the hospital of the regional Federal Penitentiary Service of the Saratov Region.

Immediately after that, the head of the regional UFSIN wrote a resignation letter .

Version Saratov , citing the founder of the Gulagu.net * project, Vladimir Osechkin, reported that human rights defenders had at their disposal more than 40 gigabytes of materials exported from Russia. These are more than 1000 video files of the Federal Penitentiary Service, which should confirm the systemic nature of torture in the colonies and pre-trial detention centers of the Irkutsk, Saratov and Vladimir regions.

The first video from a Saratov hospital shows a prisoner being raped with a mop.

“On the second, a naked prisoner is lying on his stomach with his hands rewound with duct tape behind his back. The author of the video puts his foot on his shoulder blade and demands to answer a few questions. The third video shows the rape of a prisoner by another man”, - the newspaper notes.

Earlier, reports of inhuman treatment of prisoners, bullying and torture in the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia (FSIN) system were repeatedly received from different regions of the country. One of the most resonant was the so-called "Yaroslavl affair".

As a result of the publication in the media of shots with the torture of prisoner Yevgeny Makarov by employees of the colony No. 1 in Yaroslavl, many employees were dismissed from the FSIN and ended up in the dock. As a result of the trial in 2020, 12 former employees of the colony received up to four years and three months in prison, two more were acquitted. The deputy head of the colony, Ivan Kalashnikov, who escaped from the investigation, was not put on trial. He died shortly after the sentencing of the torturers.

In general, the situation with the punishment of torturers in the country does not ensure the inevitability of punishment: more than half of the security officials caught in torture got off with suspended sentences.

* The human rights project Gulagu.net was founded in 2011 to protect the rights of prisoners. The organization was recognized as a foreign agent and stopped working in Russia on May 25 this year.