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Horrible, cold, extremely strict and humiliating.
Thus has been described the dreaded Russian prison where the leader of the opposition Alexei Navalny spend your next two years.
Vladimir Putin’s most bitter opponent was arrested in January, shortly after landing in Moscow from Germany, where he nearly died from a poisoning of which he accuses the Russian authorities.
Now the courts are sentencing him to 3.5 years in prison for violating the terms of the probation of a suspended sentence in 2014 for embezzlement.
The Russian opposition leader was arrested in January, shortly after disembarking in Moscow from Germany.
Navalny’s team do not know where he is until Monday, the activist himself has confirmed he has been transferred to IK-2.
Thanks to his Instagram account, he compared the prison to a “Concentration camp”.
“I have to admit that the Russian prison system managed to surprise me. I never imagined that it was possible to build a real concentration camp 100 kilometers from Moscow“he said in the message.
While Russian prisons are widely known for their brutal conditions, the IK-2 has been described as the “Harder” in terms of “breaking” people.
Punishments, extreme surveillance and absolute deprivation from the outside world It is part of what its inmates experience daily, many of whom are imprisoned for political reasons.
BBC Mundo attempted to contact the Russian government to get their version of the IK-2 prison, but until the time of this article’s publication we have not received any response.
Presin psicolgica
IK-2 prison, also known as Pokrov Correctional Colony or N2 Colony, is located in the Vladimir Oblast district, about 100 kilometers east of Moscow.
“Penal colonies” are the most common form of prison in Russia and are located throughout the country. The IK-2 has different departments and buildings where dormitories and inmate rooms are located to perform various tasks.
Navalny is specifically in “Intensified Control Area A”, as confirmed on his Instagram account.
In conversation with BBC Mundo, a former prisoner of this prison complex, Konstantin Kotov, assures us that he lived in fear while he was there.
Activist Konstantin Kotov spent a year in IK-2 prison. He assures us that there was psychological and physical pressure there.
“There is a very strict regime, in which the administration has total control over all aspects of the convict’s life. Applies methods of psychological pressure and physical pressure to break a person’s will. Everyone lives in constant fear of breaking the rules or doing something contrary to the administration, ”explains the activist.
Kotov was convicted of participating in protests against the Putin government “on several occasions” in a case which caused a stir in Moscow. Although at the start of the legal proceedings against him, they sentenced him to four years in prison, only one was ultimately jailed.
However, Kotov was given sufficient time to learn about the atrocities suffered by IK-2 detainees.
Routine and extreme isolation
Her day started at 6 a.m. Then he had to get dressed quickly to go out, regardless of rain or snow, stand in line and sing the Russian anthem. Then came the morning exercises, which everyone should do the same.
Later he had breakfast in the common dining room, and after that he had to walk briskly and in formation with his hands behind his back while he and the rest of the prisoners were given a “check-up. morning”. The same was repeated in the afternoon.
“You could stay up for more than an hour, twice a day, in extremely cold or hot climates, depending on the time of year, ”he says.
The gendarmes keep a close watch on the inmates, monitoring their every conversation.
In the afternoon you have to go to the work areas. You may need to join sewing or woodworking equipment, as well as cleaning up the area, sweeping up trash, or removing snow. If he didn’t, he was forced to watch television or government ads, without taking his eyes off the screen. If he fell asleep or looked away, he could be beaten.
At the end of the day, after dinner, he had a free hour where he could finally read or respond to letters, which were carefully reviewed by the guards.
“Administration fears prisoners will talk about the regime in the colony. And so your communication with the outside world is minimized: there are only paper letters subject to strict censorship. Calls are allowed once every two weeks, no longer than 15 minutes, ”Kotov explains.
“At the same time, all conversations are monitored. If a prisoner says something bad to his relatives about the colony, he will be punished. A meeting with a lawyer is very difficult to achieve, it is made as difficult as possible, ”he adds.
The extreme vigilance was confirmed by Alexei Navalny, who in her Instagram post on Monday said that “there are video cameras everywhere, everyone is watched and before the minor offense, they file a complaint “.
In the same logic, in IK-2, they subject detainees to strict quarantines.
According to another former prisoner of the compound, Vladimir Pereverzin, “The jailers isolate prisoners from each other to follow the ‘divide and conquer’ principle. Small groups are easier to manage.”
In August of last year, Navalny had to be treated in Germany for poisoning.
Pereverzin, accused of embezzling funds while working for the Yukos oil company, was released in February 2012. Despite the fact that the European Court of Human Rights later refuted the court’s decision Russian he adopted 7 years and 2 months in prison.
“A normal person cannot understand what is going on in this Russian prison. The degree of harassment and humiliation of a person knows no boundaries and continues around the clock. Prisoners are kicked out of their beds for exercise. Then they go to the bathroom, where there are 5 showers and 5 toilets for 60 people. You are always in a state of stress, you are always in a hurry to go somewhere, ”he explains from Berlin during a telephone conversation with BBC Mundo.
Punishments
In this penal colony there are prisoners who are called “Activists” or “goats”. They play an important role by cooperating with the administration of the complex, controlling the rest of the inmates, monitoring compliance with the rules, and spying on everything their companions do.
In return, these people get privileges like a shower.
“They make sure the detainees follow order, they report any abuse to colony staff and they are the ones who use physical force against other detainees. With me, they never used physical violence, they only exerted psychological pressure, ”Konstantin remembers. Kotov.
In some Russian media, such as MediaZona, former prisoners recounted how they were forced to torture the rest of the detainees.
When Konstantin Kotov was arrested, protests demanded his release.
But the guards also fulfill their role.
According to Pereverzin, the detainees are “fully energized“military policemen.
“They can do whatever they want. They can kill you And then they organize a situation and say, ‘Oh, he fell off the stairs,’ ”she said.
Deaths have been reported in several Russian prisons. Although many of them claim to be due to “natural causes”, complaints of beatings and torture are common.
“Sometimes they punish the prisoners, they beat them. Especially when they arrive at the colony and send them to quarantine, ”adds Pereverzin.
In the case of Alexei NavalnyHowever, Pereverzin believes he is not receiving too harsh punishments. “They don’t want problems and they won’t want this sort of thing to be made public,” he says.
In this regard, the head of the Russian penal service, Alexander Kalashnikov, assured the media in this country that “there is no threat to your life or health“It will be kept in absolutely normal condition,” he added.
This is what Navalny confirms in his message published on Monday.
“I haven’t seen any violence yet“, He said.” Although due to the tense posture of the prisoners, firm and afraid to turn their heads again, I easily believe in the many stories of IK-2, “he said. added.
Powerlessness
After being released from prison, Pereverzin wrote a book “Rehn, The Story of a Yukos Manager”, in which he recounts the details of his stay.
Among other things, he talks about the brutal conditions to which he was exposed on a daily basis.
The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin.
“It’s terrible. It was very cold. They gave you a blanket but that blanket didn’t heat up so you got sick. I lost weight because they also don’t give you the right food. You eat terrible things just to survive, ”he says.
Other former detainees said they are not allowed to sleep in clothes despite the fact that the temperature in the rooms it did not exceed 10 degrees.
For Pereverzin, the hardest thing about being in prison all these years was that he felt “helpless”.
“You feel helpless. There is nothing you can do about this situation. You know you’re right, that you didn’t do nothing to be in jail, but you are there“, he says.
When the former Yukos member was released, he couldn’t believe it. “I didn’t think I would ever be free,” he told BBC Mundo.
Something similar felt the activist Konstantin Kotov.
“I was overwhelmed with emotion. For the first time in a long time, I got to kiss my wife, my parents, my friends. But of course, my stay in the colony marked me and I did not get over it. negative experience so far, ”he concludes.
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