Who will stop the ‘State Department of Torture’?!

The Vinnytsia Human Rights Group reports an emergency situation that has arisen at the Bila Tserkva Penal Colony No. 35 of the State Department of Ukraine for the Execution of Punishments. According to our information, on the morning of 20 April 2009, convict Viktor Gurin committed suicide, with less than four months left until his release. According to information we managed to obtain illegally, and which we have no way of verifying, the convict committed suicide after a conflict with colony staff who forced him to work in hazardous rubber manufacturing. Currently, Viktor Gurin’s body has been removed from the colony to an unknown destination; it is likely that it may be in the Bila Tserkva morgue. Although the suicide of convicts who are under the full control and care of the state is an extraordinary event that requires immediate notification of the public, the State Department of Ukraine for the Execution of Punishments is in no hurry to report the tragedy. As of 00:00 on 21 April, there is no information on the website of the State Department for the Execution of Punishments. We report to the public with deep concern that, according to information obtained illegally, convict [D.] (surname abbreviated for privacy reasons), Serhiy Petrovych, may have been subjected to severe beating. The Vinnytsia Human Rights Group demands that the colony management immediately inform the public about the fate of the said person and provide an opportunity for journalists to meet with him.
Over the last few months, the Vinnytsia Human Rights Group has been receiving increasing amounts of negative information about the situation in the Bila Tserkva Penal Colony No. 35, in particular that, contrary to the international obligations of the state and the Constitution of Ukraine, the colony administration is failing to provide antiretroviral therapy to the HIV-positive convict [Sh.] Andriy Oleksandrovych (born 13/04/1969) and other convicts who are lodging complaints about slave labour and humiliating treatment by the administration.
The Vinnytsia Human Rights Group appeals to the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights with a request to send representatives of the Commissioner’s Secretariat to participate, together with the public, in the investigation of the circumstances of the suicide of convict Gurin and the complaints received from convicts of the Bila Tserkva Penal Colony No. 35. We ask journalists to actively cover the extraordinary event at the colony (the telephone number of the deceased’s wife, Vira. Suicides and self-mutilations by convicts driven to despair testify to the complete professional bankruptcy of the management of the Ukrainian penitentiary system, which is not for nothing popularly referred to as the ‘State Department of Torture’. Despite the fact that the President of Ukraine bears personal responsibility for the actions of the penitentiary system’s management, as he is the one who, by law, appoints and dismisses the Head of the State Penitentiary Service, we call upon the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, together with the opposition government, to immediately intensify efforts to create effective national preventive mechanisms against torture in accordance with Ukraine’s international obligations.

VHP Coordinator Dmytro Groisman