65 prisoners engage in mass self-harm at IK-14 (Angarsk, Russia)

They say that truth will out. Within a day or two, information spread through various channels, including the internet, that on 22 January, at Angarsk Penal Colony No. 14, 65 prisoners — all Tuvans — had cut their forearms and abdomens. You must agree, this is an incident of more than just regional scale! I cannot recall any other such mass protest action in places of detention.
On 25 January, members of the Public Monitoring Commission (PMC) for the implementation of human rights in places of detention, Igor Vankon and the author of these lines, visited IK-14 to investigate exactly what had occurred at the colony the previous Saturday.
The head of the Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service (GUFSIN) for the Irkutsk Region, Lieutenant General Pavel Radchenko, confirmed in a telephone conversation that mass self-harm had occurred, clarifying that there were no seriously injured prisoners.
We were allotted three hours, from 18:00 to 21:00, to visit IK-14 and speak with the prisoners. We asked which detachments had affected Tuvan prisoners. Our escort replied that they were in all of them. We entered the premises of Detachment No. 2. We explained who we were and the purpose of our visit, and asked whether the prisoners wished to speak with members of the PMC. The Tuvans agreed. They speak Russian well enough; everything they said was understandable. We managed to speak with two young men. They confirmed that on 22 January, each of them had inflicted wounds to their forearms and abdomens. We asked them to show us the cuts. The wounds on their arms were bandaged, and from the amount of blood that had soaked through, it was clear that the cuts were quite deep. We asked what had happened and why they had decided to take such an extreme step. They explained: the reason was, in their opinion, the illegal pressure exerted on the convicts by the deputy head of security at IK-14, Babeyev. According to our interviewees, he had threatened to send them—all first-time offenders (IK-14 houses prisoners serving their first custodial sentence)—to other penal colonies via the Irkutsk pre-trial detention centre. The prisoners know what SIZO-1 is like from their own experience. According to them, it is not just a place where people are beaten. It is a place where they are tormented, humiliated, degraded, and tortured. “It is better to lose one’s life here in the colony than to end up in a ‘press cell’ there. My father, mother, and all my relatives would not accept me back like that; I would rather die,” our interviewees told us.
They do not even know what they are guilty of, or for what sins they might have been transferred from IK-14 to another institution or to SIZO-1. In their opinion, one of the reasons for this treatment is their ethnicity. This invites an analogy with the recent events that took place in Moscow, on Manezhnaya Square; this is an alarming signal for the authorities, not only in the capital but also here in the provinces.
Our interviewees say that a rumour had been circulating, and specific names of Tuvan prisoners had been mentioned, so they did not wait to see if the rumour was true or not, and cut themselves. 65 out of the 78 Tuvans held at IK-14. Some had their wounds stitched; others were simply bandaged. Assistance was provided to everyone.
We asked why they resorted to this form of protest. They replied: “So that you would hear about us, come to us, and intervene: we will not go to SIZO-1.” Why did they not complain in writing to the PMC or the human rights commissioner? Complaining is pointless, they believe. Not all letters reach their intended recipient. This does not solve the problems but, on the contrary, exacerbates them. And we heard again the most frequently spoken phrase in the colony: “You will leave, but we have to stay here. Those who dared to open their mouths will be pressured.”
In the middle of the conversation, I asked if I could photograph the scarred arms and abdomens of my interviewees. They agreed. I asked our escort, Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Kryukov, for permission to do so. He refused categorically. I asked him again for the reason for his refusal, speaking into a voice recorder. Oleg Vladimirovich reacted to the switched-on ‘Panasonic’, to put it mildly, strangely: he grabbed my hands, trying to snatch the recorder away. Something similar has happened in my memory before: about 3 or 4 years ago, I was photographing a gangster’s luxury car, apparently torched by vigilantes. The bandit brothers tried to stop me, grabbing my hands and trying to pull the camera away. Those were bandits, but here, it was a Lieutenant Colonel on duty. The expression on his face was approximately the same...
In short, he considered the presence of a recorder in my hands and a camera in my bag to be sufficient grounds to terminate our dialogue with the convicts prematurely. I had to return to the head’s office and recite aloud the relevant article of Federal Law 76-FZ on the status and powers of the PMC.
A few minutes later, we did indeed return to Detachment No. 2 to finish speaking with the prisoners. They were still in the same room, but there were about twenty of them now, not just two. And they were not only Tuvans, but Russians as well. The accompanying colony staff remained behind closed doors, so the conversation was frank, without censorship, hesitation, or fear of reprisal. In short, the essence was this: the prisoners fear the colony staff most of all, and the lawlessness on their part. The main bogeyman is Babeyev. He has intimidated everyone and promises to break all the defiant prisoners.
What else did they talk about? Everyone has been beaten. Both in the pre-trial detention centre and during the ‘intake’ process at the zone. Here, they are forced to work for almost nothing. A month of work without days off results in a salary that is not enough even for cigarettes. One cannot lodge complaints with human rights defenders. The contingent is warned of the arrival of outsiders by a coded signal of three rings. And so, before this visit, an hour before our appearance at IK-14, the local population was warned: do not ask unnecessary questions, answer in a clichéd way—we are very satisfied, everything is wonderful, there are no complaints. A conversation between PMC members and a large group of convicts is an opportunity to avoid personal reprisals. We asked if they had achieved what they wanted with their protest action. They themselves seem unsure. But one thing they know for sure: if there had been only 5 or 10 people who cut themselves, this incident would have been hushed up easily. They would have been scattered to the corners, perhaps sent to another zone for disciplinary purposes. But hiding 65 people who have cut themselves is no joke. The prosecutor’s office has already been working on the incident that occurred at IK-14, and explanations have been taken from the participants of the protest action regarding what happened.
We continued this conversation in the head’s office. I asked about what kind of person the odious figure of Babeyev is. Is the deputy head healthy, is he sound of mind? The prisoners insist in one voice that he is not. A nervous, easily excitable man should not work with people, especially when there are many of them and they are so provocatively defenceless. The head of the institution answered firmly: “Officer Babeyev has been working at the institution for about ten years, he is a capable, normal guy, with work experience, he is adequate, and as for people complaining about him—well, that is the nature of his position.” This, apparently, is the other side of the coin. In opposition to the collective opinion of the convicts.
We summed up the visit and asked what the head of the IK intends to do to rectify the situation. Apparently, he, as a leader, will have to answer for it. And not only he.
It would be good if the leadership of the GUFSIN seriously considers personnel problems and their consequences. It would be good if they called things by their proper names: what happened on 22 January at IK-14 was a mass mutiny, not an unfortunate story about how a few dozen prisoners ‘scratched’ themselves. For no reason.
The prosecutor’s office must provide its assessment of what happened. The members of the PMC will also draw their conclusions: it is their direct duty and civic responsibility to identify conflicts in a timely manner and contribute to their resolution, pointing out to the penitentiary leadership the excesses of the system, from which everyone suffers, including ordinary residents.
Specifically for those who will be looking for a reason in this publication to sue the author, I clarify once again: everything discussed in this material is my personal opinion regarding the events that took place.
Irina Sutyrina
I was not allowed to take photos, so I had to use the internet.
P.S. We will definitely return to IK-14. And, apparently, more than once. As sanitarians and peacekeepers. We will resolve the problem that officially does not exist—the problem of interethnic communication. As a member of the PMC, I am convinced by the GUFSIN staff: Tuvans are not a simple people. They have their own national peculiarities of mentality. You cannot understand them; you cannot break them by force. So, I do not know who is more civilised: the man in uniform striving to break people, or the Tuvan who would rather die than continue living after losing his masculine and human dignity within the walls of the prison cell...

(Newspaper ‘Svecha’ No. 3 dated 27.01.2011, Angarsk)