The most surprising thing about the torture of Russian prisoners published this week is not that there is torture in Russian prisons. That was known. What is more surprising is that the videos have been successfully released, and that the Russian authorities are taking immediate measures.
On Tuesday, Gulagu.net published (“No to Gulag”), a group working for the rights of Russian prisoners, three short videos. It shows how prisoners are beaten and sexually abused. A man is raped with a thick broomstick. Another man is tied on his stomach on the floor, he is peed all over and he gets a foot on his head. Four naked men, full of tattoos and with fearful looks on their faces, hold each other’s genitals. The images come from the tuberculosis hospital of a prison in the Saratov region, more than 800 kilometers southeast of Moscow.
Over a thousand videos
According to Vladimir Osetshkin, the founder of Gulagu.net which operates out of France, his organization has 40 gigabytes of videos, photos and documents about abuse in multiple prisons between 2018 and 2020. He says he has evidence that more than 200 inmates were tortured, of which forty are on video. It would be more than a thousand videos.
In the coming weeks, Osetshkin plans to publish more videos, including on his YouTube channel. Images appeared there on Wednesday from two other prisons, with an explanation by Osetshkin. According to him, the abuse is committed by members of the secret service FSB and prison authority FSIN.
The videos were allegedly smuggled out or sent by an IT specialist who was imprisoned in Saratov for five years. He was abused himself, and was later deployed as a computer expert in prison. This is how he got access to the saved videos. So there was no question of an external hack, as in the images of abused inmates in Iran’s Evin prison that came out at the end of August.
Also read about the prison where Alexei Navalny is incarcerated
A possible explanation for recording the abuse is that prisoners are blackmailed into betraying others or signing false statements. Another explanation is that the recordings are intended to show superiors that ‘occurrence’ has occurred.
Seven criminal cases
The Russian authorities reacted remarkably quickly to the revelations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said on Tuesday there would be “serious consequences” if the authenticity of the material were confirmed. FSIN chief Aleksandr Kalashnikov immediately sent an investigation team to Saratov. The same night, four executives at the prison lost their jobs.
On Wednesday, the regional authorities made In Saratov it is known that seven criminal cases have been opened, five for sexual violence and two for abuse of power. It is not a structural approach to the abuses, but it is an indication that the authorities seem convinced of the authenticity of the videos.
Tatyana Lokshina, responsible for Europe and Central Asia at human rights organization Human Rights Watch and based in Moscow, does not yet want to make a statement about the reliability of the images. “We have yet to verify that.” She refers to previous cases where prisoners were tortured, in Irkutsk and Yaroslavl, where the perpetrators have been convicted in court cases. “There is clearly a major problem with torture in the Russian prison system.”
According to Lokshina, the fact that some prisoners are recognizable in the videos is extra worrying. “Our main concern is the safety of the prisoners, and these men are now even more at risk.” The motive for violence can be futile, Lokshina says. “Prisoners are ‘punished’ for complaining about poor conditions, or for not showing enough respect to guards.”
They are probably ‘regular’ prisoners, not political prisoners. A relatively large number of people are imprisoned in Russia. According to a report of the Council of Europe at the beginning of 2020, it was 356 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, the second highest percentage in Europe.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of October 7, 2021
The most surprising thing about the torture of Russian prisoners published this week is not that there is torture in Russian prisons. That was known. What is more surprising is that the videos have been successfully released, and that the Russian authorities are taking immediate measures.
On Tuesday, Gulagu.net published (“No to Gulag”), a group working for the rights of Russian prisoners, three short videos. It shows how prisoners are beaten and sexually abused. A man is raped with a thick broomstick. Another man is tied on his stomach on the floor, he is peed all over and he gets a foot on his head. Four naked men, full of tattoos and with fearful looks on their faces, hold each other’s genitals. The images come from the tuberculosis hospital of a prison in the Saratov region, more than 800 kilometers southeast of Moscow.
Over a thousand videos
According to Vladimir Osetshkin, the founder of Gulagu.net which operates out of France, his organization has 40 gigabytes of videos, photos and documents about abuse in multiple prisons between 2018 and 2020. He says he has evidence that more than 200 inmates were tortured, of which forty are on video. It would be more than a thousand videos.
In the coming weeks, Osetshkin plans to publish more videos, including on his YouTube channel. Images appeared there on Wednesday from two other prisons, with an explanation by Osetshkin. According to him, the abuse is committed by members of the secret service FSB and prison authority FSIN.
The videos were allegedly smuggled out or sent by an IT specialist who was imprisoned in Saratov for five years. He was abused himself, and was later deployed as a computer expert in prison. This is how he got access to the saved videos. So there was no question of an external hack, as in the images of abused inmates in Iran’s Evin prison that came out at the end of August.
Also read about the prison where Alexei Navalny is incarcerated
A possible explanation for recording the abuse is that prisoners are blackmailed into betraying others or signing false statements. Another explanation is that the recordings are intended to show superiors that ‘occurrence’ has occurred.
Seven criminal cases
The Russian authorities reacted remarkably quickly to the revelations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said on Tuesday there would be “serious consequences” if the authenticity of the material were confirmed. FSIN chief Aleksandr Kalashnikov immediately sent an investigation team to Saratov. The same night, four executives at the prison lost their jobs.
On Wednesday, the regional authorities made In Saratov it is known that seven criminal cases have been opened, five for sexual violence and two for abuse of power. It is not a structural approach to the abuses, but it is an indication that the authorities seem convinced of the authenticity of the videos.
Tatyana Lokshina, responsible for Europe and Central Asia at human rights organization Human Rights Watch and based in Moscow, does not yet want to make a statement about the reliability of the images. “We have yet to verify that.” She refers to previous cases where prisoners were tortured, in Irkutsk and Yaroslavl, where the perpetrators have been convicted in court cases. “There is clearly a major problem with torture in the Russian prison system.”
According to Lokshina, the fact that some prisoners are recognizable in the videos is extra worrying. “Our main concern is the safety of the prisoners, and these men are now even more at risk.” The motive for violence can be futile, Lokshina says. “Prisoners are ‘punished’ for complaining about poor conditions, or for not showing enough respect to guards.”
They are probably ‘regular’ prisoners, not political prisoners. A relatively large number of people are imprisoned in Russia. According to a report of the Council of Europe at the beginning of 2020, it was 356 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, the second highest percentage in Europe.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of October 7, 2021
The most surprising thing about the torture of Russian prisoners published this week is not that there is torture in Russian prisons. That was known. What is more surprising is that the videos have been successfully released, and that the Russian authorities are taking immediate measures.
On Tuesday, Gulagu.net published (“No to Gulag”), a group working for the rights of Russian prisoners, three short videos. It shows how prisoners are beaten and sexually abused. A man is raped with a thick broomstick. Another man is tied on his stomach on the floor, he is peed all over and he gets a foot on his head. Four naked men, full of tattoos and with fearful looks on their faces, hold each other’s genitals. The images come from the tuberculosis hospital of a prison in the Saratov region, more than 800 kilometers southeast of Moscow.
Over a thousand videos
According to Vladimir Osetshkin, the founder of Gulagu.net which operates out of France, his organization has 40 gigabytes of videos, photos and documents about abuse in multiple prisons between 2018 and 2020. He says he has evidence that more than 200 inmates were tortured, of which forty are on video. It would be more than a thousand videos.
In the coming weeks, Osetshkin plans to publish more videos, including on his YouTube channel. Images appeared there on Wednesday from two other prisons, with an explanation by Osetshkin. According to him, the abuse is committed by members of the secret service FSB and prison authority FSIN.
The videos were allegedly smuggled out or sent by an IT specialist who was imprisoned in Saratov for five years. He was abused himself, and was later deployed as a computer expert in prison. This is how he got access to the saved videos. So there was no question of an external hack, as in the images of abused inmates in Iran’s Evin prison that came out at the end of August.
Also read about the prison where Alexei Navalny is incarcerated
A possible explanation for recording the abuse is that prisoners are blackmailed into betraying others or signing false statements. Another explanation is that the recordings are intended to show superiors that ‘occurrence’ has occurred.
Seven criminal cases
The Russian authorities reacted remarkably quickly to the revelations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said on Tuesday there would be “serious consequences” if the authenticity of the material were confirmed. FSIN chief Aleksandr Kalashnikov immediately sent an investigation team to Saratov. The same night, four executives at the prison lost their jobs.
On Wednesday, the regional authorities made In Saratov it is known that seven criminal cases have been opened, five for sexual violence and two for abuse of power. It is not a structural approach to the abuses, but it is an indication that the authorities seem convinced of the authenticity of the videos.
Tatyana Lokshina, responsible for Europe and Central Asia at human rights organization Human Rights Watch and based in Moscow, does not yet want to make a statement about the reliability of the images. “We have yet to verify that.” She refers to previous cases where prisoners were tortured, in Irkutsk and Yaroslavl, where the perpetrators have been convicted in court cases. “There is clearly a major problem with torture in the Russian prison system.”
According to Lokshina, the fact that some prisoners are recognizable in the videos is extra worrying. “Our main concern is the safety of the prisoners, and these men are now even more at risk.” The motive for violence can be futile, Lokshina says. “Prisoners are ‘punished’ for complaining about poor conditions, or for not showing enough respect to guards.”
They are probably ‘regular’ prisoners, not political prisoners. A relatively large number of people are imprisoned in Russia. According to a report of the Council of Europe at the beginning of 2020, it was 356 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, the second highest percentage in Europe.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of October 7, 2021
The most surprising thing about the torture of Russian prisoners published this week is not that there is torture in Russian prisons. That was known. What is more surprising is that the videos have been successfully released, and that the Russian authorities are taking immediate measures.
On Tuesday, Gulagu.net published (“No to Gulag”), a group working for the rights of Russian prisoners, three short videos. It shows how prisoners are beaten and sexually abused. A man is raped with a thick broomstick. Another man is tied on his stomach on the floor, he is peed all over and he gets a foot on his head. Four naked men, full of tattoos and with fearful looks on their faces, hold each other’s genitals. The images come from the tuberculosis hospital of a prison in the Saratov region, more than 800 kilometers southeast of Moscow.
Over a thousand videos
According to Vladimir Osetshkin, the founder of Gulagu.net which operates out of France, his organization has 40 gigabytes of videos, photos and documents about abuse in multiple prisons between 2018 and 2020. He says he has evidence that more than 200 inmates were tortured, of which forty are on video. It would be more than a thousand videos.
In the coming weeks, Osetshkin plans to publish more videos, including on his YouTube channel. Images appeared there on Wednesday from two other prisons, with an explanation by Osetshkin. According to him, the abuse is committed by members of the secret service FSB and prison authority FSIN.
The videos were allegedly smuggled out or sent by an IT specialist who was imprisoned in Saratov for five years. He was abused himself, and was later deployed as a computer expert in prison. This is how he got access to the saved videos. So there was no question of an external hack, as in the images of abused inmates in Iran’s Evin prison that came out at the end of August.
Also read about the prison where Alexei Navalny is incarcerated
A possible explanation for recording the abuse is that prisoners are blackmailed into betraying others or signing false statements. Another explanation is that the recordings are intended to show superiors that ‘occurrence’ has occurred.
Seven criminal cases
The Russian authorities reacted remarkably quickly to the revelations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said on Tuesday there would be “serious consequences” if the authenticity of the material were confirmed. FSIN chief Aleksandr Kalashnikov immediately sent an investigation team to Saratov. The same night, four executives at the prison lost their jobs.
On Wednesday, the regional authorities made In Saratov it is known that seven criminal cases have been opened, five for sexual violence and two for abuse of power. It is not a structural approach to the abuses, but it is an indication that the authorities seem convinced of the authenticity of the videos.
Tatyana Lokshina, responsible for Europe and Central Asia at human rights organization Human Rights Watch and based in Moscow, does not yet want to make a statement about the reliability of the images. “We have yet to verify that.” She refers to previous cases where prisoners were tortured, in Irkutsk and Yaroslavl, where the perpetrators have been convicted in court cases. “There is clearly a major problem with torture in the Russian prison system.”
According to Lokshina, the fact that some prisoners are recognizable in the videos is extra worrying. “Our main concern is the safety of the prisoners, and these men are now even more at risk.” The motive for violence can be futile, Lokshina says. “Prisoners are ‘punished’ for complaining about poor conditions, or for not showing enough respect to guards.”
They are probably ‘regular’ prisoners, not political prisoners. A relatively large number of people are imprisoned in Russia. According to a report of the Council of Europe at the beginning of 2020, it was 356 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, the second highest percentage in Europe.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of October 7, 2021