Russian prisons: a whistleblower denounces a system of organized rapes

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A ruthless repression has targeted prisoners since 2020 accused of a mutiny in a Siberian penitentiary. Rape, torture and humiliation are far from isolated practices in the Russian prison world, according to testimonies from former detainees gathered by AFP. The specialized NGO Gulagu.net has received a thousand videos proving this abuse, which according to it is frequently orchestrated by the authorities.

Humiliations and rapes: a punitive operation struck prisoners accused of a mutiny in a Siberian penitentiary in 2020, according to testimonies gathered by AFP and published Thursday, October 7. A far from isolated case in the Russian prison world.

According to these elements, many convicts were tortured for months in “pressure cells” in the Irkutsk region, suffering beatings and sexual violence inflicted by detainees on the orders of the guards.

Roustam * and Alexeï * were among the victims of orchestrated abuse, according to them and the specialized NGO Gulagu.net, to make them confess their involvement in a revolt in April 2020 in Colony N ° 15 of Angarsk, not far from Lake Baikal.

“Corridors covered in blood”

Today in freedom, they tell AFP their ordeal. “I saw corridors covered in blood and a lot of unconscious prisoners on the ground,” said Roustam, 40, from Tajikistan, his country of origin.

Alexeï, 25, admits having broken two surveillance cameras during the revolt. “Just for that, they broke my destiny,” he says. This expression, in the jargon of prisoners, means to have been raped by fellow prisoners, bringing the victim into the outcast caste, those of the “roosters” (“petoukhi”) of the prison hierarchy, very codified. “I lost everything”, breathes Alexeï. “I am in great pain and I am simply asking for justice.”

The two men say they were beaten up by guards during the troubles in Angarsk penitentiary, marked by a huge fire. They were then transferred to Irkutsk No. 1 Prison, where they say they were tortured by inmates obeying the administration.

“Everything is allowed”

If Roustam and Alexeï break the law of silence, it is because in December 2020, a case untied the languages.

The NGO Gulagu.net then reports the case of Kejik Ondar, a prisoner from Angarsk transferred to prison No. 1 where he was sodomized with an immersion water heater, causing him serious injuries. His lawyer, Dmitri Dmitriev, speaks of a “catalyst” case: “Without this media turmoil, they would have hushed up the case.”

In mid-January 2021, a special commission of inquiry was sent to the region. Four prisoners and three cadres are indicted for their roles in the rape of Kejik Ondar. Another prison official is being prosecuted in a similar case in another prison.

The head of Colony N ° 15 of Angarsk during the revolt, Andrei Verechtchak, was indicted in early July for “abuse of power” for illegal economic activities within the penitentiary.

On September 24, the Investigative Committee, Russia’s main investigative body, confirmed that it was studying “systematic torture” between April and December 2020 in the prisons concerned. Sixteen prisoners are accused of rape.

The Russian prison administration did not respond to AFP’s questions. Extremely rare, the NGO Gulagu.net collected the confessions of three detainees who participated in the torture. They explain that they acted on behalf of the authorities who were looking for culprits for the Angarsk revolt. One of them, Denis Golikov, claims to have withheld the “necessary confessions” from some 150 prisoners between April and July 2020. In a deposition on September 14, consulted by AFP, he wrote that he had received this instruction from his superiors : “Everything is allowed except corpses.”

Sponsors not prosecuted

For Vladimir Ossetchkine, director of the NGO Gulagu.net and political refugee in France, the torturers speak because they do not want to be the only ones to pay.

The authorities “mainly launch cases against the sadists who tortured but not against the ordering parties”, he said, stressing that the Russian prison organizations “systematically” use prisoners to punish others.

These recent investigations are “historic”, according to Vladimir Ossetchkine, but concern only a “small part” of the number of victims. And investigators “will not go so far as to say that the punitive operation was planned or to prosecute its sponsors,” adds lawyer Dmitri Dmitriev.

The torments of the Angarsk mutineers are far from isolated cases. Russian prisons are notorious for their violence, whether mafia, orchestrated by the authorities, or a mixture of the two.

On Tuesday, a new scandal erupted. Gulagu.net revealed to have received a thousand videos a whistleblower proving the extent of ill-treatment in places of detention in the country.

The unbearable images of a prisoner being raped in a prison-hospital in Saratov prompted the authorities to launch an investigation. As of Wednesday, at least four officials of the Saratov prison services were sacked.

A sidelining that hardly convinces Vladimir Ossetchkine: “The authorities are hypocrites and will do everything to minimize their responsibility in this torture factory.”

* Names have been changed for fear of reprisals

With AFP