Eva Merkacheva at HRC asked Putin to ban shackles: full report

Help “MK”. “As of August 1, 2022, 465,347 people were held in Russian correctional colonies, prisons and pre-trial detention centers. This is a historical minimum in recent history! So, for example, in 1986 the number of people in places of deprivation of liberty was 2,356,933 people, in 1991 – 1,254,247, in 2000 – 1,092,000. Russia, which for many decades ranked third in the world in terms of prison population , moved to fifth.

But a quarter of the current prison population are people in the pre-trial detention center (114,172 people).”

“Mr. President!

I want to tell you about the pre-trial detention center – pre-trial detention centers where people are kept until they are sentenced, that is, those who have not yet been found guilty.

There are many women in Russian pre-trial detention centers who have young children at home. The vast majority of these prisoners are suspected of non-violent crimes and do not pose any threat to society. They sit until the verdict only because it is so convenient for the investigation, because this is a method of pressure, better than which nothing has yet been invented.

This year I found quite a few women in the pre-trial detention center who sit there for 3 and even 5 years before being sentenced. And this despite the fact that the conditions in the pre-trial detention center are equated to a strict regime, and a strict regime is not provided for by Russian legislation for women as a punishment.

That is, those who have not yet been found guilty are sitting in conditions in which they cannot be, even when they are given a real term. This is a legal incident, which was pointed out this year by some senators. And, nevertheless, women accused of economic and other non-violent crimes in the pre-trial detention center are only getting bigger.

The worst thing is that their children suffer, who are definitely not to blame for anything. In this case, the consequence in most cases does not allow calls or visits with children. Our draft law (I told you about it at one of the previous meetings) that calls and visits with relatives do not depend on the investigator has been blocked by the security forces.

To make you understand the horror of the situation, I will give a few examples. One of the women, the owner of a travel company accused of fraud, who has been in a pre-trial detention center for 4 years, has a child who thinks that her mother is seriously ill and is being treated somewhere far away, from where it is even impossible to call. Another woman has three young children who are sure that they cannot see their mother for three years, because she flew into space to explore other planets …

But in some cases, children think that their mothers have died or abandoned them, and that they will never see them again. I repeat, these women did not commit violent crimes, they are not maniacs and not robbers, they are prosperous parents, they had jobs and housing. To separate them, not yet found guilty, from their children – isn’t that in itself a crime?!

Or here is a very revealing story. The woman worked all her life as an adviser to one of the departments, and also taught at the department of the university, is a professor. Accused of economic crime. She has five children aged 2, 4 (disabled), 5, 12 and 13 years old. However, the Presnensky District Court could not refuse the leadership of the GSU SK, and she was sent to a pre-trial detention center. She was threatened with arrest of her husband (he is a lawyer), and send the children to an orphanage. She recently learned that her husband was indeed arrested. The children were left without both parents only because the investigation needs to get confessions as soon as possible.

Some time ago, this teacher was taken to the investigation. According to the prisoner-professor, in the car her hands and feet were handcuffed, and a large heavy chain was stretched between them. In this position, she was taken down the street.

This is a manifestation of unthinkable, incredible cruelty. And by the way, about the shackles. This year, for the first time, we began to receive complaints from prisoners about what they put on them, shackles. At first, I personally did not even believe it, it seemed too fantastic. We are not in ancient Egypt or Rome, where shackles were put on slaves and criminals. But it turned out to be true! The police call them “Ajour” mobility restraints, and we found out that more than twenty thousand such devices have been purchased this year, and that an instruction has recently appeared that recommends the escort regiment to use them.

Perhaps, in cases with terrorists, serial killers, this is justified. But they put it on female teachers, businessmen (one such story happened in Samara). I ask you to instruct you to ban the use of Azhur and the like against women, entrepreneurs and, in general, all those suspected and accused of non-violent crimes.

And since I touched on the topic of the pre-trial detention center. I think that this year we have a real disaster – a record number of deaths of prisoners from diseases. Some died right before our eyes, such as 25-year-old seriously ill Sergey Loevaccused of fraud. When I found him in SIZO No. 5, he no longer got up from the iron bunk, “walked under himself,” but the investigation and the court considered that he could be kept in custody.

And basically all the dead were accused of economic crimes. They died before the verdict, that is, not found guilty.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the Novosibirsk scientist, head of the laboratory of quantum optical technologies at Novosibirsk State University, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Dmitry Kolker, who had the last stage of cancer, and doctors found that the possibilities of surgery and chemotherapy had been exhausted. He was detained on suspicion of a serious crime – treason. But his guilt has not been proven, and even if it were, it did not give any moral and legal right to take out of the hospital, disconnecting from life support devices, a person who is not able to move and eat independently. By plane, Kolker was taken to Moscow, to the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center. There he died a day later.. It is hard to imagine how he suffered during those days.

But there are those who are still alive, seriously ill, and they suffer every day in the SIZO cells. Blind, legless…

I ask you:

– amend legislation to explicitly prohibit the arrest of women with young children accused of non-violent crimes.

– prohibit the arrest of both parents at the same time

– prohibit the arrest of disabled people of the 1st group, as well as disabled people of the 2nd and 3rd groups, if they are accused of non-violent crimes and if it is impossible to provide them with an individual rehabilitation program in a pre-trial detention center.

And I would also like to give you a separate report on what is happening in the colonies during the NWO period.

Finally, I have a question that worries many amid increased talk about the return of the death penalty. You were against the death penalty. Has your position changed?

Regarding the death penalty, Vladimir Putin said that his position had not changed. The head of state recalled that the head of the Constitutional Court, Zorkin, also recently spoke about this: in order to return the death penalty, the Constitution would have to be changed.

“Women with children… You then moved on to other categories. And I feel sorry for women, and, moreover, I feel sorry for children. But we have women without children and the same disabled people – questions of social justice arise. And we need a unified solution in this regard,” the President said.

“If a person sits behind bars for five years before the trial, this is a clear violation of human rights. We have repeatedly spoken about the need to stop this practice,” Vladimir Putin continued. – We must strive to avoid extremes. I will give instructions to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Supreme Court.

In shackles for economic crimes… I don’t even know how to qualify this. This practice must be stopped.”