WE ARE ASKING FOR HELP!
We are appealing to you in the hope that you will react and put an end to the regular and gross human rights violations committed by the administration of the Dnipropetrovsk CC-89 in the maximum-security sector.
Specifically: every two months, a riot police unit is brought into the maximum-security sector, which applies psychological terror, physical violence, and humiliation to the convicts, forcing them to run into exercise yards while beating them with batons, as well as with their hands and feet. In the exercise yard, a search is conducted; they are stripped naked and forced to perform squats repeatedly until exhaustion, to bend over, and to spread their buttocks, all while being subjected to beatings and obscene taunts...
During this time, a search is also conducted in the cells; all personal belongings are thrown into a pile on the floor, photographs and letters are torn, and food is mixed with household chemicals. They trample on personal belongings with their boots, leaving dirty tracks.
Medical assistance is purely formal; in the case of a minor illness, the paramedic does not always come, and if they do, they do not even have basic painkillers like analgin. Often, it is proposed that an injection of an unknown medication be given—it is unclear what kind of syringe is used—into the arm through two doors and two food slots, after which no improvement occurs.
A medical office for patient examination is completely absent; in the case of a serious illness, one has to wait for 3 months for a doctor, who conducts the examination in the office of the duty officer, in the presence of 5–6 ensigns who, in turn, laugh at the complaints and make humiliating remarks.
The doctor ignores serious illnesses and prescribes local, formal treatment, while making it clear that they are forbidden from issuing a referral for treatment in a hospital if it involves leaving the colony. The course of treatment prescribed on-site is ineffective, as medications are issued in limited quantities, irregularly, and are immediately confiscated during searches by the duty officer, A. N. Natsevych.
To receive medicine from family, they have established difficult rules: it is necessary to write an application for permission to receive the listed medicines, the application is taken for approval, and in the event of approval—which happens extremely rarely—it is handed over after a month. Subsequently, this application must be sent to relatives in a letter (which may never arrive), and they then send the medicine by post along with the application; the whole process takes 2–3 months...
The maximum-security building is located 5 metres from the hospital where prisoners with active tuberculosis are being treated. TB is an infectious disease transmitted by airborne droplets, which leads to the spread of this disease among healthy convicts in the maximum-security sector. The same solitary confinement cells are used—without sanitary treatment—in which healthy convicts from the maximum-security sector are placed after tuberculosis patients have been held there.
The solitary confinement cells are damp, have concrete floors, small windows, and no ventilation (much like the regular cells), which leads to the inevitable contraction of tuberculosis!
In the sector, every 10 days, a mass transfer of convicts from cell to cell is carried out (TB patients also participate in these transfers), which acts as a form of psychological pressure. They also apply psychological pressure by playing the same cassette of classical music from morning until night, while there is no relaxation room available for the convicts.
A similar situation exists for the category of life-term prisoners held in the maximum-security sector.
We have voiced only a tenth of what actually happens in CC-89! We believe that the detention regime in this colony in the maximum-security sector is designed to destroy this category of prisoners.
We ask for your help!
Five names are indicated.