One of the reasons why the practice of video recording of torture through sexual violence has appeared in Russian prisons is the development of video surveillance and control of social activists over colonies – jailers can no longer beat a prisoner for “educational” purposes, therefore they rape him, which is impossible to determine with a superficial visual examination. Human rights activist Marina Litvinovich spoke about these changes in an interview with Lente.ru.
“It happened in the zero years, when, firstly, video surveillance appeared. It has become impossible to just take and beat a person, because you are constantly in the camera lens, ”Litvinovich said. – The second reason is the emergence of public control. These are members of the POC (Public Monitoring Commissions) to a greater extent and human rights ombudsmen to a lesser extent. Basically, it was the activities of the PMC that led to a reduction in the number of cases of direct beatings. Because there are always bruises and marks left after that, and it is not profitable for the authorities when they have someone who has been badly beaten, they have to hide him for two weeks until all the bruises are gone. “
Over time, the jailers came up with other methods of torture, for example, beating with sticks on the heels, the consequences of which are very painful, but without a thorough examination it is impossible to find traces. Another method named by the human rights activist is twisting the limbs, which also leaves no traces.
“The third is sexual torture, because you cannot visually determine whether a person has been sexually assaulted. If you do not examine the rectum, do not examine it specially, then you will not find direct evidence, ”she concluded.
Earlier, human rights activists of the “Gulagu.net” project reported that they had at their disposal the largest archive of videos of prison torture. According to the founder of the project, Vladimir Osechkin, 40 gigabytes of video with torture of prisoners were filmed by officers of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) of Russia on official video recorders. After that, criminal cases were initiated, the situation was taken over by the Prosecutor General’s Office, the State Duma and the Federation Council.