Almost all the residents of Donbass suffered from the «Novorossiya» escapade. However, the inmates of the colonies and prisons are reduced to run away from the war in contrast to bulk of population of the Eastern regions. Experts are saying about nearly 15 thousands of the convicts, who are abandoned to occupation power. The inmates themselves tell about the cruel conditions of keeping and remember how they «sit, when there was Ukraine»…
They keep us for the beasts!
“The president of Ukraine issued a decree on November 14 to move away from ATO zone all the convicted, but the fightings have begun, our administration left us and ran away. — tells on the phone one of the inmates of one of the correctional facilities on the uncontrolled territory, Eugeniy — Old our guards also ran away and we have new. Some of the old staff came to “militants”. The treatment to the is the same like to us. They are not paid. New are paid, old not”.
According to Eugeniy words the ration of the convicts absolutely depends on humanitarian aid and appetites of the new administration.
“The humanitarian aid comes for us from Russia, but it doesn’t reach us. The administration uses it in their own way. I talked with guys, who
delivers humanitarian aid, they say: “We brought you the sugar, salt, canned food, vegetable oil, buckwheat groats”. We don’t see all of this here.
We are fed three times a day, but, for example we get only first course, it is the thin soup with pasta and boiled unknown husk, there is no
potato, fat or anything more. We don’t practically eat sugar, we constantly hungry” — complains Eugeniy.
According to the words of the prisoner, the administration hides the real position ot the convicted.
“The guys, who brought the “humanitarian aid” say: “We were at the dining-room, we saw that everything is ok”. They saw what they were
showed! Before the communication with them you are brought first to the chief of the colony and he’s saying: “Look! They will come and go out
and you still live here”. That’s all. The wish to say the truth disappears after such words. And people are going and starving and
administration gets the profit from it” — tells Eugeniy.
The only people who can help the to the inmates and to control the allocation of the humanitarian aid it’s the mission of OSCE.
“Earlier, when here was Ukraine, if you go only to the dining-room it was enough for you. The bread was given in normal portions and there were first and second courses, and there was kasha not only soup. Now they even gave thin kasha and soup… they sift the pasta, boiled a glue and they call it “the soup”. The canned food was given separately earlier and now they throw into the general boiler three-five cans for smell and that’s all” — Eugeniy outraged.
But more than living conditions Eugeniy is worried about clearless juridical status of the convicts in “people’s republic’s”.
“I’m saying to them: “I got the papers from the General Prosecutor of Ukraine that there is a need to investigate new opened circumstances in my case”. So, they say: “We don’t care (censored) about General Prosecutor”. I’m asking” “So, how I need to prove my innocence? I have been writing for many years, proving and proving and the result is… Ok, for what laws we are here? We are like prisoners of war, it turns?”. They are saying: “Here are our laws”. There is no rules and laws. Everything is a lie here!” — considers the inmate.
We have places. We need political will
According to the human rights defender Vadim Pivovarov the biggest part of the prisoners of Donetsk and Luhansk regions haven’t been taken them, because there wasn’t enough of time. Now it’s harder to do it.
“The releasing of POWs and hostages is doing, but nobody carries on this people. We did the first step in this direction in the beginning of July and organized first in the history transfer of convicted to Ukraine from one of the “republics”. The negotiations took nearly two months with connection of Russian Ombudsman. From that side negotiations were made by “minister of justice of “DPR”. The leadership of ATO and new head of SSU Vasily Gritsak were involved from the other side. The big distrust was from that side, “DPR” insisted on the security guarantees and Valeria Lutkovskaya personally became the guarantor of security for this purpose. She said: “I will go personally, for them not to afraid”. Also Headquarters for the Coordination of the ceasefire, which includes Ukrainians, Russians, UN mission to monitor human rights, and I, as a member of the public took part in the negotiations. Paddy and escorts of prisoners came from our side, because a part of convicted had a serious criminal articles even up to life. The paddy and escort vehicle also came from that side and we made transfer” — tells Vadim Pivovarov.
the public activist suggests that this problem must be one of the important to solve for Ministry of Justice, because prison service obeys to this institution. But this ministry didn’t concern about the fate of the abandoned prisoners, that’s why Ombudsmen, SSU and MIA began to engage them.
“The transfer became possible due to the fact that all 9 convicted were the foreigners who must be extradited. This prisoners the citizenship of Georgia, Armenia and Russia. Even Russia couldn’t for the extradition of its inmates, because this territories doesn’t have a subject, who can officially transmit them. It was important for us to catch the category of convicts and in general made the first transfer experience of this people. We begin from them and then if it possible we will remove to other vulnerable like TB patients, women etc. If women were managed to move out in “LPR”, controlled by “DPR” territory still has the women’s colony. We hope and do our best to continue such transfers. Ukraine has the places for this prisoners. The political will of Ukraine is important first of all” — considers the human rights defender.
Denis Matsola for informator.lg.ua