Appeal to General Kalinin

A group of Russian human rights defenders and civil activists has issued an open appeal to General Yuri Kalinin, Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN).
The appeal states, in particular:
“We are addressing you because the state of the penitentiary system in today’s Russia can no longer be described as anything other than catastrophic. Cruel treatment of prisoners, extremely unsatisfactory conditions of detention, and arbitrariness and corruption among the administration in places of deprivation of liberty—all of this has become a problem today not only for the people caught in the relentless millstones of your department but for the whole country and our entire society.
You have worked in this system for a significant part of your life, starting in 1970, and have been the head of the department for many years: from 1992 to 1998, you were the head of the Main Directorate for Execution of Punishments of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (GUIN), and from 2004, you took the post of Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN). In the early 90s, many human rights defenders spoke positively about you. You did not refuse positive cooperation with such well-known human rights organisations as ‘Prison and Freedom’ and ‘Memorial’. Human rights defenders were allowed into colonies and remand centres, and were provided the opportunity to communicate with the clients of legal aid and defend their rights without obstruction.”
The authors of the appeal emphasise that, in their opinion, the situation has changed drastically for the worse over the last eight years:
“The dialogue that had begun to be established between the penal system and civil society has been lost and brought to nought.... Public defenders do not have the opportunity to provide legal aid to their clients in places of deprivation of liberty without obstruction. You have left human rights defenders with no other method of action than making public the numerous facts of lawlessness and the trampling of human rights in today’s camps and prisons.
Instead of looking for ways to rectify the current situation, you are suing human rights defenders for defamation—and the people who told the truth about today’s camps and prisons are becoming direct candidates for political prisoner status. Thus, a criminal case has been initiated against Lev Ponomarev, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the ‘For Human Rights’ Foundation, on an unsubstantiated charge of defamation against you, and a civil case is being initiated against human rights defender Valery Abramkin.
But attempts to intimidate and prosecute human rights defenders are not a method for rectifying the blatant situation in the system of prisons and camps.”
In the appeal to General Kalinin, the authors speak about crimes within the FSIN system, in particular, the beating of prisoners.
The appeal emphasises that, according to the authors’ information, there have been deaths of prisoners due to the failure to provide them with timely medical assistance.
“We stand in solidarity with Lev Ponomarev’s assertion regarding your personal responsibility, Yuri Ivanovich, for the state of affairs in the department you head,” note the authors of the appeal to the Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service.
The authors of the appeal are convinced that the reform of the penal system has failed and that General Kalinin “should either resign or finally take a decisive step towards a positive dialogue with civil society.”
The authors of the appeal are: Tatyana Monakhova, librarian and human rights defender; Elena Sannikova, philologist and human rights defender; Lyudmila Evstifeeva, publishing house proofreader; Mikhail Kriger, entrepreneur; Raisa Grishechkina, civic activist and human rights defender; Elena Maglevannaya, journalist.
The appeal was joined by: Sergei Kovalev, Chairman of the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, President of the Institute for Human Rights, and Chairman of the Russian ‘Memorial’ Society; Yuri Samodurov, Executive Director of the Sakharov Foundation; Yuri Ryzhov, Academician; Anatoly Khomyakov, Associate Professor at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI); Malva Landa, human rights defender and member of the first Moscow Helsinki Group (1976); Alexander Lavut, mathematician, human rights defender, and member of the Council of the ‘Memorial’ Human Rights Centre; Yuri Shikhanovich, mathematician and former employee of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR Committee on Human Rights; Pavel Bashkirov, human rights defender; Yuri Dzhibladze, Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights; Andrei Kalikh, Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights; Evgeny Khait, member of the Moscow Union of Writers; Stanislav Bozhko, rare book expert; Inna Kaganova, physicist; Leonid Litinsky, mathematician; Roman Kazantsev, researcher at the Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage; Lyudmila Vakhinina, pensioner; Sergei Sorokin, senior expert at the Russian Federal Centre of Forensic Science under the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation; Vladimir Shaklein, human rights defender; Mikhail Trepashkin, lawyer; Elena Batenkova, teacher and civic activist; Dmitry Brodsky, coordinator of the human rights education group ‘Feedback’; Viktor Sokirko, human rights defender; Andrei Naletov, human rights defender; Irina Vologina, engineer; Anna Pastukhova, Chair of the Yekaterinburg ‘Memorial’ Society; Maya Kofman, member of the Moscow ‘Memorial’ Society; Elena Rile, geologist; Raisa Belotserkovskaya; Maria Volkova; Mikhail Zanadvorov, psychologist and writer; Evgeny Frumkin, human rights defender; Vyacheslav Bashkov, human rights defender; Pavel Lyuzakov, journalist; Veniamin Dmitroshkin, student; Nina Falkovskaya, translator; Yuri Knizhnikov, physicist and laureate of the State Prize in Science and Technology; Nelli Brainina, lecturer; Dmitry Zykov, student; Vasily Berladir, worker; Anatoly Roshchin, researcher; Mikhail Nasyrov, Ulyanovsk regional branch of the All-Russian Movement for Human Rights; Lyudmila Shcherbatykh, librarian; Georgy Kalinin, human rights defender; Valentina Vasilevskaya, translator; Mikhail Podlubny, programmer; Aisha Astamirova, housewife; Dmitry Sedov; Ilya Povyshev, engineer; Viktor Borun, lecturer and artist; Nadir Fattyakhetdinov, human rights defender; Suren Edigarov, entrepreneur; Elena Sagalova, pensioner and human rights defender; Dmitry Tarasov, worker; Kirill Gilyarov, member of the Union of Right Forces (SPS); Vladimir Sirotin, journalist and human rights defender; Shamil Shiabetdin, human rights defender; Igor Kozyrev, researcher; Elena Feoktistova, pensioner; Alexander Zimbovsky, journalist; Tai Pelshe, journalist; Petr Belousov, lawyer; Mikhail Chudakov, journalist and poet; Yulia Bashinova, journalist; Olga Trusevich, housewife; Pavel Nikulin, student