The “iron fist” is now a systematic means of pressure, especially on Russian political prisoners. A Mediazona investigation tells the stories of those who have been subjected to violence in Russian prisons to extract forced confessions.
Moscow () – Accusations of repression and violence in Russian lagers and prisons are regularly dismissed by Putin’s politicians, who speak of “minimum health measures” necessary to avoid the dangers of extremism in this difficult period of “operation special military,” in the words of the president’s advisor Valery Fadeev. A report by Andrej Karev, Mediazona’s correspondent for the judiciary, highlights how the times of the worst Soviet persecutions are actually not that far away, to the point that today we speak of “Putinist terror.”
As UN Special Rapporteur Mariana Katsarova also states, torture and heavy hand are now systematic instruments of pressure in Russia, especially against political prisoners, anti-war protesters, representatives of ethnic minorities and anyone who dares to criticize the current regime. There is a return to repression of the inakomysljascye, those “who think differently”, as dissidents were called in Brezhnev’s time, using violence to obtain forced confessions and sow fear among the population.
Ibrahim Orudzev, a student sentenced to 16 years for preparing attacks and spreading terrorist tendencies, told a Moscow courtroom that he was subjected to torture by prison guards. After 10 days of administrative arrest for resisting a public official, upon leaving the detention cell he encountered “a mysterious masked police employee,” who slapped him on the back with a rather threatening expression and invited him to sit on the car. Two other men, probably members of the FSB, were waiting for him in the car. They put a bag of shoes on Ibrahim’s head and handcuffed him. They explained to him that they had been watching him for some time and that they were “disgusted with his behavior”, and they began to hit him on the back with very vulgar and humiliating expressions, the mildest of which was “only your mother thinks you are a handsome boy, in reality.” “You are of no use.”
When he arrived at the place of interrogation, his “commissioner” was waiting for him in the patio, who began to hit him with a spring-loaded baton and a steel ball, and the treatment lasted all night. Between threats, Ibrahim was told that “we have been ordered to break two of your fingers,” and when it was clarified in court that all the fingers were in place, the judge disdainfully joked that “someone will have to be punished for not following orders.” received. The next morning, a guard appeared before Orudzev with a syringe, declaring that he would ‘inject him with the AIDS virus’ if he did not ‘tell him everything’.
Another testimony collected is that of Gerej Dzamalutdiov, 23, resident of Dagestan, accused of the riots at Makhackala airport on October 29, 2023, who claims that he was detained by mistake, but was forced to plead guilty under strong pressures. During the attempted anti-Semitic pogrom, a store camera caught him leaving his night shift, and the next day he was detained by police for a document check. As he did not have his passport with him, Gerej was taken directly to the police station, where he was accused of hooliganism and subjected to “medical treatment” for corporal violence, until he admitted to having participated in the airport riots. As the young man was quite robust and resistant, in addition to torturing him, it was necessary to threaten him with accusing him of drug trafficking, and packages of narcotics were “found” among his personal effects.
The service reports many other stories, such as that of Evgenija Konforkina, 41, convicted of high treason after trying to bring horses from Ukraine to her racecourse, where she works as an instructor. Her relatives do not know where she is currently detained and fear for her life; As happened to the dissident-martyr Aleksej Naval’nyj, ending up in the “meat grinder” of Putin’s prisons and lagers can become a nightmare from which one cannot wake up.
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