The untouchables touched the court – Kommersant

The ECtHR ruled for the first time on human rights violations in informal prison practices. The court concluded that convicts belonging to the “lowered” caste are subjected to segregation, physical and sexual violence, and psychological abuse. According to the court, the Russian authorities are ignoring the problem of the existence of an informal hierarchy. Human rights activists admit that prison castes appeared without the participation of the state, and do not see a ready-made recipe for their eradication.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled on the complaints of 11 people who served or continue to serve their sentences in penal colonies in six Russian regions. The first of these complaints was filed in August 2011 and the last in December 2017. The convicts said that they were “lowered” – the name of the lowest caste in the informal prison hierarchy (also known as “cocks” and “offended”). Some of the applicants fell into this caste because they were convicted of sexual crimes, including those against minors. Others have become “lowered” by contact with “unclean” objects and surfaces (such as the toilet floor) or by touching the body or belongings of another “offended”. The applicants informed the court that they had a separate place in the cell for eating. They were forbidden to touch other prisoners. Outcasts were forced to do all the “dirty” work from the point of view of informal prison rules – for example, clean the toilets. The “lowered” were often denied food, hygiene, and medical care, prevented from using the refrigerator, shared laundry and bed linen, and denied access to a doctor until he was visited by “decent” prisoners. The applicants stated that they had been subjected to systematic physical and sexual abuse.

12 years after receiving the first complaint, the ECHR recognized that all 11 people were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. The accounts of the applicants from different regions were consistent, clear and detailed, corroborated by data from human rights activists and academic researchers, the court said. The ECtHR noted that informal hierarchies are common in places of detention around the world, but Russian prison castes are especially deeply entrenched in the penitentiary system. “The inaction of the Russian authorities in this case can be seen as a form of complicity in the abuses suffered by prisoners under their protection,” the ECtHR decided and demanded that all applicants be paid €20,000 in compensation.

Recall that on March 15, 2022, the Kremlin notified the Council of Europe (CE) about the launch of the procedure for the withdrawal of the Russian Federation from this organization. The next day, the Council of Europe decided to immediately exclude Russia. One of the consequences was the termination of communication between Russia and the ECtHR. In June 2022, the State Duma adopted a law on the refusal to enforce decisions of the ECtHR that entered into force after March 15, 2022. In Strasbourg, they point to Russia’s obligations given upon joining the Council of Europe and insist that Russia must comply with the judgments of the ECtHR adopted before September 16, 2022. “Commenting on an obviously unenforceable court decision is not a very rewarding thing,” lawyer Alexander Vinogradov told Kommersant (representing the interests of five prisoners). “I regret that the ECHR has been considering the complaint of ordinary, unprotected citizens for so many years. I also regret that our state also lashed out at all applicants to the ECtHR. After all, people are not to blame for this situation.”

Asmik Novikova, an expert of the Public Verdict Foundation (listed in the register of foreign agents), sociologist, points out that the emergence of a hierarchy is a natural development of any closed system. “Such a hierarchy exists everywhere,” the expert says. “The question is what is being done by the state in order to reduce all the negative consequences of this hierarchy.” The state has an obligation to take individual measures to protect any prisoner at risk, says Ms. Novikova, and to take general measures that would address the problem at its root. The measures that the Russian authorities notified the ECtHR, Ms. Novikova considers unsuitable: “It says, in particular, that a person can be transferred to another colony, but this does not protect him at all. A person in a new colony is forced to independently designate his status as an outcast, otherwise he will be very seriously punished.

“The existence of the prison hierarchy is not officially recognized anywhere,” lawyer Alexei Laptev, a representative of one of the applicants, told Kommersant. “No one is saying that it needs to be fought. And until the goal is set, it is pointless to expect that the situation will change.” The lawyer also believes that the presence of the “lowered” caste helps the administrations of the colonies to manage prisoners: “If some convict with a heightened sense of justice begins to write complaints about the situation in the colony, he can be threatened with falling into the “lowered”.”

“I don’t quite understand how the state can fight this hierarchy in general,” lawyer Yakov Iontsev told Kommersant. “It arose and exists apart from the state, contradicts state laws and stems from a subculture based on the denial of the state and state laws. The employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service cannot simply ignore this hierarchy, just as they cannot ignore reality, this can provoke illegal actions against convicts by convicts, a riot, and so on. Mr. Iontsev also notes that correctional officers use the prison hierarchy for their own purposes and may threaten to “lower” the prisoner. “But with the same success, FSIN employees use any predictability in the behavior of their wards – for example, they can put a skinhead in a cell with Caucasians,” says Mr. Iontsev. He considers “the only realistic option” for the elimination of the institution of the “offended” – its gradual “extinction”. “When I filed a complaint, I read in academic studies that in the 1970s there were literally a few people with such a status in the colonies, and now there are almost ten percent of them,” lawyer Laptev objects. “That is, this is a significant group of people, who are daily humiliated and insulted. It is not normal, after all, if we say that we are building a state of law. Yes, now there is no ready-made solution to this problem, but we need to try to find it.

Emilia Gabdullina, Alexander Chernykh