LONDON, Nov 3, (Reuters) – Tedious guide work, poor hygiene and lack of entry to medical care – such are the circumstances awaiting U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in a Russian penal colony after she misplaced her enchantment final week in opposition to a nine-year drug sentence.
It’s a world acquainted to Maria Alyokhina, a member of feminist artwork ensemble Pussy Riot who spent practically two years as an inmate for her half in a 2012 punk protest in a Moscow cathedral in opposition to President Vladimir Putin.
The very first thing to know, Alyokhina mentioned in an interview, is {that a} penal colony is not any abnormal jail.
“This is not a building with cells. This looks like a strange village, like a Gulag labour camp,” she mentioned, referring to the huge penal community established by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to isolate and crush inmates.
“It actually is a labour camp because by law all the prisoners should work. The quite cynical thing about this work is that prisoners usually sew police uniforms and uniforms for the Russian army, almost without salary.”
The colony was divided between a manufacturing facility space the place the prisoners made clothes and gloves and a “living zone” the place Alyokhina mentioned 80 ladies lived in one room with simply three bathrooms and no sizzling water.
Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medallist, may quickly be transferred to a colony in the absence of an additional enchantment or an settlement between Washington and Moscow to swap her for a Russian arms seller jailed in the United States – a chance that was floated months in the past however has but to materialise.
HARSH RULES
In a Pussy Riot present that has toured the world and is now taking part in in Britain, Alyokhina relives the recollections of her time as an inmate – snowy jail yards, plank-like beds, lengthy spells in solitary confinement and punishment for minor infringements similar to an unbuttoned coat or poorly hooked up nametag.
She was consistently being videoed by jail guards “because I am a ‘famous provocateur’,” she added.
Russia’s jail service didn’t reply to a request for remark for this text.
A more moderen penal colony detainee, Yelena, described the same regime to that skilled by Alyokhina a decade in the past.
Yelena, 34, served eight years in a Siberian colony after being convicted for possession of medication. She mentioned she was paid about 1,000 roubles ($16) a month for toiling 10-12 hours a day in a stitching workshop.
“Girls with a strong, athletic build are often given much heavier jobs. For example, they load sacks of flour for a prison bakery or unload mountains of coal,” she mentioned.
[1/4] U.S. basketball participant Brittney Griner seems on a display by way of video hyperlink from the detention centre throughout a court docket listening to to contemplate an enchantment in opposition to her jail sentence, in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region, Russia October 25, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina
Prisoners may face punishment for inexplicable “offences” similar to inserting a wristwatch on a bedside desk. The final sanction was solitary confinement, often known as “the Vatican”.
“Just as the Vatican is a state within a state, solitary confinement is a prison within a prison,” Yelena mentioned.
A gynaecologist paid a month-to-month go to to her colony, the place greater than 800 ladies had been imprisoned.
“You do the math, what are the chances of being the one to get through to a doctor? Practically zero,” she mentioned.
LANGUAGE BARRIER
For a foreigner with little or no Russian, it is tougher to navigate the system and cope with the isolation.
The brother of Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine serving 16 years in a Russian penal colony on espionage prices that he denies, mentioned he’s granted a 15-minute telephone name every day to his dad and mom, can’t name different members of the family or associates, and has no entry to electronic mail or the web.
David Whelan mentioned his brother should work no less than eight hours a day, six days per week, on menial duties like making buttonholes, which has brought on him repetitive pressure damage.
Inmates sleep in barrack-like buildings and entry to many requirements, together with medication, will depend on paying bribes to jail guards, he mentioned. Conditions can rely closely on the whims of guards, the warden or elder inmates.
Paul appears to make use of his navy coaching “to get through just day to day, to figure out what battles to fight and which battles not to fight”, David Whelan mentioned.
“His phone calls even to our parents are recorded. His letters were all translated before they went out. So you know that everything you do is being watched and you really have no sense of individuality.”
Alyokhina mentioned receiving playing cards and letters from the skin world provided a uncommon ray of hope, and he or she urged folks to help Griner that means.
She mentioned they need to use a machine translation and ship the textual content in each English and Russian to get it extra simply previous the jail censor.
“Do not leave someone alone with this system,” she mentioned. “It’s totally inhuman, it’s a Gulag, and when you feel yourself alone there, it’s much easier to give up.”
Reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London, Filipp Lebedev in Tbilisi and Simon Lewis in Washington; extra reporting by Caleb Davis and Humeyra Pamuk
Editing by Gareth Jones
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
