According to research by human rights activists, torture is being carried out in Russia’s prisons. President Vladimir Putin has now drawn the consequences.
Russia is shaken by a prison scandal, now a high-ranking member of the penal system has had to vacate his post: a few weeks after the publication of recordings allegedly showing torture and alleged rape in a prison, President Vladimir Putin has headed Russia’s prison administration dismiss. Alexander Kalashnikov will be replaced by Deputy Interior Minister Arkady Gostev, the Kremlin announced on Thursday.
Kalashnikov was in charge of prisons in Russia for two years
Kalashnikov, who is subject to numerous Western sanctions because of the imprisonment of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, was head of the prison administration for two years.
The move came after human rights groups posted numerous videos last month from a prison in the central city of Saratov allegedly showing torture and ill-treatment. They were reportedly smuggled out of prison by a former inmate who has since fled Russia and applied for asylum in France. The recordings were published by the anti-torture organization Gulagu.net.
According to information from the AFP news agency, the former inmate had worked as an IT maintenance officer during his drug trafficking sentence. In doing so, he gained access to the prison’s internal server and to the servers of other prisons, where he found several videos. He saved them on a USB stick that he is said to have hidden near the prison exit.
A video shows the rape of a prisoner with a pole in a prison hospital. According to human rights activists, the recordings document “systematic torture” by guards in Russian prisons.
Human rights activists denounce torture in Russian prisons
In early November, the Russian penitentiary authority said it had dismissed 18 employees and five officials from the Saratov authority in connection with the case and had opened several investigations. The Kremlin had previously called for the cases to be clarified.
Human rights activists regularly report torture, humiliation and beatings by Russian prison staff and other inmates. In March, the Kremlin critic Alexej Navalny, imprisoned in a Russian penal camp, accused the prison guards of torture through “sleep deprivation” and inadequate medical care.
See in the video: Russian President Vladimir Putin spent several days in the wilderness in Siberia with his defense minister in September. And once again Putin presented himself as a tough guy.
Source From: Stern
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