Human rights activists for humane transportation of prisoners

The Komi Human Rights Commission (KPC) “Memorial” has appealed to the republican Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office with a demand to ban the operation of the new prisoner transport vehicle based on the UAZ-3741 (“bukhanka”) in the convoy unit of the Internal Affairs Department (OVD) of the city of Sosnogorsk.
Human rights activists believe that this special vehicle does not meet the requirements of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which prohibits torture and other forms of degrading human dignity. The complaint filed marked the beginning of a “Memorial” campaign against the transportation of prisoners in so-called “glasses” — single-occupancy boxes with an area of less than one square metre.
The first complaints from relatives and acquaintances of prisoners about the use of “glasses” were received by the KPC “Memorial” last summer. But human rights activists were only able to assess the nature and scale of this problem this year, when a new federal law “On Public Control over the Provision of Human Rights in Places of Detention” came into force in Komi. Under this law, several “Memorial” representatives received the right to visit police penitentiary institutions.
On 20 March 2009, members of the KPC “Memorial” visited the OVD of the city of Sosnogorsk. There they were shown a brand-new prisoner transport vehicle based on the UAZ-3741 (“bukhanka”) truck, which had recently arrived at the department's convoy unit. This special vehicle is designed to transport four prisoners in single-occupancy metal boxes with an area of 0.4 square metres each. It is these boxes that are called “glasses” in professional convoy slang.
Meanwhile, as early as 3 December 2004, by the order of the federal Ministry of Internal Affairs “On measures to improve the effectiveness of the interaction of the Russian Interior Ministry with the Representative of the Russian Federation to the European Court of Human Rights”, the transportation of suspects and accused persons in conditions of insufficient ventilation or lighting or in any other physically excessively difficult conditions was prohibited.
Additional legal frameworks for the implementation of the specified order were established by the European Court of Human Rights in the ruling of 8 November 2005 in the case of “Khudoyorov v. Russia”, in which the court examined for the first time the issue of technical equipment of vehicles for the transport of prisoners. Referring to reports of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the Strasbourg Court pointed out that individual cells with an area of 0.4, 0.5, and even 0.8 square metres are unsuitable for transporting a person, regardless of the time the vehicle is in transit. It is obvious that the Sosnogorsk prisoner transport vehicle does not fit into European standards in any way.
Today, the chairman of the KPC “Memorial”, Igor Sazhin, appealed to the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office of Komi with a demand to ban the operation of the special vehicle inspected in Sosnogorsk. According to the human rights activist, transporting prisoners in it would violate Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The latter prohibits torture and other forms of degrading human dignity.
“From now on, our organisation will pay the closest attention to the problem of ‘glasses’. Guided by the 2004 order of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, we will seek to ban the transportation of people in single-occupancy boxes in prisoner transport vehicles that do not meet the recommendations of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture,” declared the chairman of the KPC “Memorial”, Igor Sazhin, today.
Additional information can be obtained from board member of the KPC “Memorial” Ernest Mezak. Phones in Syktyvkar: +7 904 222-78-41, +7 912 865-46-69. Email: [email protected].