“They shoved this porridge into my anus with a spoon.”
Ruslan Suleymanov was released from a correctional colony (CP) in April of this year. He remembers what it was like for him to endure two years of torture and inhuman cruelty. First, Ruslan ended up in pre-trial detention center No. 1 in Omsk (this detention center was recognized in 2015 as one of the best in the country) and only then in IK-7.
Ruslan Suleymanov:
— It was in pre-trial detention center No. 1 of Omsk on Monday, March 10, 2016, the day when I was brought to this pre-trial detention center. There were 17 of us who arrived at the stage. Everyone was crammed into a small cell, standing like herrings in a glass. They took us one by one to the mattress room; there were a lot of employees there; on the bed there was a plate of buckwheat porridge and a spoon. And the employees said: “Have a spoon and come on in.” This was presented as a rite of passage for the newcomer to serve his sentence. Everyone was forced to eat a spoonful of porridge. There was one spoon for everyone. But we can’t touch this dish, we can’t eat from it. These are the dishes of the offended. When I was traveling, I already knew that you couldn’t eat in this prison. That the dishes there are dirty, laminated [shared with the offended]. They wanted to humiliate us in this way. I refused to eat with this spoon. The rest ate and were not touched. There on the floor lay an unrolled mattress and a pissed pillow. They told me: “Now we’re going to stick you in the urine.” I say: “Stick it in.” They started dunking me, sticking me in. But I can’t smell it because of my head injury.
There were six or seven employees of the pre-trial detention center. They stretched my legs on the mattress, held me on all sides, pulled off my pants and underpants and began to shove this mess into my anus with a spoon.
They probably threw six or seven spoons, and then they poured out half a plate and simply pushed it into the anus with the handle of a mop. I’ve remembered this buckwheat for the rest of my life, I can’t see it.
I won’t say how long this lasted. When you encounter such moments, you don’t think about time. Then another boss, a colonel, came. I say: “What is this?” And he tells me: “No, my employees cannot do this - and he laughs.”
They began to beat him, and one of the employees urinated directly on his wounds. Ruslan ended up in the hospital, where his wounds were smeared with brilliant green, then he went on a dry hunger strike for several days and ended up in IK-7.
Ruslan Suleymanov:
“I remember the man who pushed the buckwheat into me very well, I will never forget his face.” His rank was major or captain. He is an operative from the same central office. He is tall, thin, shaved, fair. And if I see the cut man who urinated on me, I will recognize him.
When I arrived at the colony, I wrote a statement against the detention center staff and gave it to the operative. And then I received a decree from the 10th police department of Omsk that, it turns out, I cut myself because I did not want to serve my time in Omsk, because it is far from home. And there was no violence on the part of the staff of pre-trial detention center-1.
In the penal colony, Ruslan had it even worse - they stripped him, tied his arms from behind and began to break them, stretched his legs, and connected an electric current to them. One of the employees came up behind him, sat on his knees and said: “Crow or rape.”
Ruslan and other prisoners were tortured in a sophisticated way - they were forced to bend at 90 degrees and walk exactly like that (in prison they called it “building 90”). Due to health conditions, Suleymanov is disabled, he has epilepsy, and he could not move like that for a long time.
Ruslan Suleymanov:
“I walked around, looking down, but not bending too much. My carotid artery from the groin was transplanted into my neck, I can’t bend over, it pulls, I have a cramp. I also take pills for epilepsy. And they just started beating me. When the head of EPKT Makhmadbekov Shodibek Hadzhibekovich (now there is another head of EPKT) hit me in the face, his hand was almost open. I repeated to him: “No need to hit with an open hand.” He himself is also a Muslim and knows that according to Muslim laws, hitting someone with your palm is a shame. We kill people for this. It’s worthy to hit me with my fist, because I consider myself a man. And he said to me: “Why are you going to tell me...”
And after that, Makhmadbekov threw me onto the mattress, and it began: they put a bag over my head, and twisted my hands. I didn’t see who was holding my hands; Artem Anatolyevich Khalov was holding my legs. Tide Ivan Iosifovich was also there - he is now the head of EPKT. But he didn't do anything, he just stood there. Makhmadbekov is screaming like mad: “Bring everything here, bring the packages here, pillows, current device...” They put a pillow on my buttocks. They know that when they torture, it happens that the heart stops, the muscles relax and the person shits himself, pissing. And they started suffocating me with a bag, kneeing me in the stomach, stifling my breathing...
Suleymanov managed to see the faces of those who mocked him - usually the colony staff do everything wearing masks. The man immediately reported the beatings and humiliation to his lawyer.
Ruslan Suleymanov:
“I didn’t tell her anything openly, because everything is recorded in the meeting room, but I simply told her: “Waving in my face is hurting my honor, hurting the honor of my father. They will be held accountable for this. If we cannot do anything according to these laws, we have our own customs. And then let them go to prison, or even bury them in the ground, what difference does it make to me?” And she brought it all to the boss, they were scared. This head of EPKT was removed. He now works there in the Security Department (Security Department), and is involved in search operations.
Quarantined in a drying room, naked prisoners were forced to touch each other's genitals and slow dance with each other. But these are no longer employees, it is the convicts who force them to do this.
Irina Zaitseva, one of the human rights activists of former prisoners, says that she submitted several applications to the Investigative Committee. After this, cameras were installed in IK-7, which recorded everything that happened; the video was shown in April of this year on the Omsk TV channel, but later this recording was removed from the site. When asked where the video disappeared, the program host replied that it “deleted itself” for unknown reasons.
These were not the only ways to torture prisoners: they were sent naked into the cold outside, and they were also forced to greet dogs and behave like dogs.
Ruslan Suleymanov:
— There was an employee there, now he has been transferred to a free settlement. So he put a collar on a person’s neck and forced the convict to run on all fours, like a dog, and gave different commands: face - bite the convicts, voice - bark, run... This employee’s name is Vasya Trofimov. He is a ruthless man.
When there was some lawlessness, some torture somewhere abroad, Russia was first of all indignant. And right under their noses, in Omsk, an inquisition is being carried out, and they are silent.
Life in women's colonies
Compared to men's prisons, conditions in women's prisons are slightly milder. The rules established by the prisoners themselves also differ. Thus, in women’s correctional institutions there is extremely rarely a so-called common fund. Although life in “families” on the principle of running a common household and dividing gear among all members of a given group also exists among women.
Women are more likely to write complaints against their cellmates, while for men this is considered a violation of the unwritten code.
Psychologists note that conflicts between women last longer and are more emotional than among men. However, this is a subjective statement as individual factors play an important role.
As for the division into castes, it exists in women's prisons too. A woman who lets slip that she had anal sex while free is automatically included in the lower caste of the “lowered.” As a result, she may become a victim of female sexual violence. Forced lesbian sexual relations are also practiced. Prisoners with long sentences often create stable pairings of this kind.
“Until you crap yourself and piss yourself, we will continue”
The second former prisoner, Malkho Bisultanov, was sent to IK-7 in February 2015. He was forced to undress and take off his underpants.
Malkho Bisultanov:
— I asked permission to wrap myself in a towel or underwear, since I am a believer and cannot completely undress. The duty officer, Anatolyevich, asked: “Are you refusing to take off your panties?” I answered: “Yes.” He left. Three people attacked me, wrapped my arms, put a bag over my head and dragged me into an office opposite the toilet, handcuffed my hands and tied my legs. They put a hat with earflaps on his head over the bag and wrapped it with tape and wrapped it around his neck with tape. Then they put wires on the ring toes of both feet, doused my body with water and attached the wire to my genitals and shocked me. When I lost consciousness, they poured water on me again and hit me on my cheekbones.
When they shocked me, a healthy [large] man was sitting on my chest. He sat with his back to my face and held my knees when the electric shock made me bend over. The second one held his head, and the third one shocked him. I can’t say how long it lasted, since I periodically lost consciousness. When I was screaming and crying, the man who was holding my head, with his hand, either closed my mouth or opened it.
When I asked: “Why are you torturing me, what do you want from me?” They answered: “Until you crap yourself and wet yourself, we will continue.”
Then they pinched my nose so that I could only breathe through my mouth and gave me water through double pillowcases. When I started burping, the person holding my head turned me right and left. Then they removed one wire from the toe and put it on the head of the penis, doused the right side of the stomach, threw the wire there, and shocked him again. I fainted. When I woke up, they dragged me into some office. There was a cage in the corner of the office. They took me into a cage and fastened me to the cage: with one hand up, the other hand at the level of the middle of the cage, so that I could not sit down. Every hour they came and changed hands: they fastened the upper one down, and the lower one up. They told me to work with my hands so they wouldn't swell. But I couldn’t move my hands, I practically couldn’t feel them, and then they hit my hands, swore at me, called me names, twisted a key between my buttocks, and this continued until lunch the next day. I was completely naked, I had two pillowcases with vomit on my head, into which I belched during the torture.
The torture continued the next day - they beat Bisultanov with electric shock, hung him up, strangled him, tore out the hair on his chest, beat him on the feet, put a bag over his head and poured water into it.
“Convicts in this zone are like zombies”
Vakha Magomedkhadzhaev was released from IK-7 in January of this year - he spent 11 years there. He recalls that he and other prisoners were tortured by the local FSB, the head of the colony, and operatives.
Vakha Magomedkhadzhaev:
“These people take you out at night, lift you to the second floor, tie your hands behind your back, fill a large tank with water and put your head in the tank and hold you until you shake, pull you out and ask: “Are you going to confess?” Will you sign?” They suffer a lot there.
Torture is terrible. They undress you, they bring a man to you and say: “Now he will rape you if you don’t sign. Now we’ll push the baton into your head.”
There is also a cage in the corridor. When a person is brought in, he is put in this cage until he is searched. And what they do: they completely undress you, hang you there naked, you can barely touch the floor with your fingers, and put a bag over your head. You hang until your hands turn blue, they demand you confess. I was hung upside down. On the second or third day the prosecutor came and said: “What’s wrong with your eyes? Why red? I say: “What could be wrong with the eyes? They are tortured here." And the head of the colony stands and says: “Yes, his blood pressure has risen, that’s why his eyes are red. We gave him a pill, called a doctor, and now he’s fine.” The prosecutor smiled and left. Local prosecutors all know what's going on there.
Prisoners in this zone are like zombies. In quarantine, they force you to jump as if you were catching butterflies, to walk like a caterpillar, they push needles under your nails... It’s very scary when they lay you on your back, tie your arms and legs, two or three people sit on your stomach, hold your head, cover your nose with a clothespin so that your nose couldn’t breathe, then they pour water from a bottle into your mouth. This is such a terrible torture! When they pour water, it’s as if my throat is torn, it’s so painful.
[IK-7] is specially taken to this place, it is enough for the prisoners to say that they will take him there, he did it, he didn’t do it, he admits, just so as not to go there.
They don't let me pray. They say pray once a day is enough. I suffered a lot for prayer all the way. They got their own mule, a Tatar, and he said: “You don’t need to pray, you’re sitting in prison, you can’t break the regime, you’ll pray at home.”
A person is afraid to complain, he has to sit there, and the commission will come and go, and you will have to stay here. If you complain, they then tell you: “We will now drive you into a harem, offend you, and beat you all the way.” That's why people endure everything there. If you are late for work, some kind of problem is raised to the second or third floor, to the operations department and there they insert a wooden mallet [large hammer] into the guy wire. And they hit you on the back with a mallet, on the buttocks, they put on boxing gloves and hit you on the head.
The paramedic does not register any beatings. If anything hurts, she says: “Drink Citramon.” If you ask another pill, she will complain: “He insulted me, he showed his teeth.” And they beat the prisoner so that he will no longer turn to them for medical help.
When someone arrives, they will do everything beautifully, but in reality, what is going on inside is scary.
Order in IR
Women's colonies differ from men's colonies in relation to different categories of prisoners. There are a number of outcasts here. These include:
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- Child killers. Prisoners serving sentences for this crime are constantly beaten by other convicts.
- Experienced drug addicts. Especially those addicted to hard drugs.
- Patients with sexually transmitted diseases and cancer.
They avoid patients and try not to have contact with them.
As for prisoners who have committed an economic crime, they often become victims of extortion or deception in order to lure out money. Such extortion is often carried out by employees of the colony administration, and not just by other convicts.
Since the administration sets production standards for work in the zone, punishment is provided for non-compliance. As is often the case in the Russian penitentiary system, punishment is collective. Therefore, the injured prisoners take it out on the person responsible for the disruption of the production plan.
