The Pussy Riot soon sent to a prison camp for women
Moscow – Two members of the Pussy Riot, sentenced to two years in labour camp for having sung a “prayer” punk against Vladimir Poutine in the main Cathedral of Moscow should be soon transferred to a penal colony for women. It is far from the Gulag by Stalin, but the principle remains the same: isolating prisoners and break them by ‘disciplinary work.
Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova will have to quickly learn the rules of life-force in this type of prison: he must survive nutritional deficiencies, lack of medical care and intimidation from the other prisoners potentially offensees with their punk prayer against Russian president.
“Everyone knows the rule: don’t trust anybody, fear not and never forgives», disseminates Svetlana Bakhmina, a lawyer who has spent three years in a Russian prison camp. “You are in a lawless zone.” No one helps you. “You need to be careful about what you say and you should strive to remain a human being.”
Maria Alekhina, 24 years, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22 years old, and Ekaterina Samoutsevitch, 30 years old, were sentenced for hooliganism and incitement to religious hatred in August for having sung and danced a punk prayer in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. They were demanding the departure of Vladimir Poutine, then in the running for a third presidential term. He found the head of State in may after occupied it from 2000 to 2008, with an interlude of four years as Prime Minister.
Even if women have insisted that their protest was indeed political, many believers were deeply offended by the sight of five women waving on the altar, given colored hoods. Only three members of the Group were arrested.
Ekatarina Samoutsevitch was released on appeal on 10 October, it did not participate in the same performance, but confirmed the convictions of his two comrades. “Their redemption is possible, but only in isolation from society”, said the judge.
In these prison camps for women, inmates live in barracks, at 30 or 40 by pod. Their day begins with compulsory exercises at dawn in the open air, despite temperatures down to-30 ° C in winter. After a frugal breakfast, they make seven to eight hours a day at work, bent on sewing machines to make uniforms or other clothing.
Muscovite women sentenced to this type of camp are not necessarily sent in that located near the capital. They can be hundreds of kilometres away, for example in Mordovia, a province swamp, infested by mosquitoes, on the Volga River. Defence counsel stated that Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova would be transferred within the next two weeks. They still ignore their camp assignment.
If difficult that are the living conditions in these settlements, they are not worse than those of the pre-trial detention centres. There, the prisoners are often found in tiny, insalubrious, cells which they leave only one hour per day. Three Pussy Riot are already passed by there.
«Monstrously archaic»
The Minister of Justice himself acknowledged that the Russian prison system was “monstrously archaic. The Russia tsars were their prisoners in camps of forced labour in Siberia. At the time of the Soviet Union, millions of prisoners worked until death in the Gulag. The Russia has more prisoners than any other country in the world, ahead of the United States and China, according to the international Centre for prison studies.
Under the chairmanship of Vladimir Poutine, these camps have welcomed a new kind of detainees. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Director of the oil company Yukos, is serving 14 years in prison in a camp in Eastern Siberia. The richest mécaniques Russia was therefore sentenced to make mittens. Arrested in 2003, he was convicted in two cases, but for many observers, it’s a political punishment for opposing the ruling Vladimir Poutine.
According to lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina, former collaborator of M. Kodorkovski, prisoners have little free time, because guards forced them often to take courses or participate in cultural activities.
“There is not the time to get bored in these camps.” Bored is a luxury in this type of prison. “You regret only time passing”, is Svetlana Bakhima. “A normal person cannot imagine this environment, you must get used to you and people have to get used to you.” It takes months, maybe six months. Everything depends on the way in which you you comportez.»