The head of the pre-trial detention centre suspected of beating a prisoner has been dismissed

Dismissed from the position of Head of the Vinnytsia penal institution No. 1 is the person accused of brutally beating a prisoner.

The Vinnytsia Human Rights Group welcomes the decision taken by the new leadership of the State Department of Ukraine for the Execution of Sentences to dismiss the Head of P.I. No. 1 (Vinnytsia SIZO), Kozachyshyn.

This decision was taken during the holidays immediately after the Vinnytsia Human Rights Group released a clandestinely filmed video, in which the brutally beaten prisoner Vyacheslav Mushynskyi relates that he was beaten by the head of the SIZO personally in his office.

From 24 August, according to human rights activists, Leonid Valentynovych Zhura was appointed Head of P.I. No. 1. The previous Head of the Vinnytsia SIZO, Mr. Baltak, was dismissed after a widely reported message about the mass beating of SIZO prisoners by unknown masked individuals on 18 June of this year.

'According to our data, prisoner Mushynskyi is not being pressured, he has not been forced to apologise. The hunger strike of prisoners of P.I. No. 1 has been stopped, the situation in the institution is calm. However, the dismissal of the colony head is an insufficient measure of response. We expect a principled assessment by the Prosecutor's Office of the Vinnytsia region regarding the video of the prisoner's beating,' stated the Vinnytsia Human Rights Group.

Human rights activists appealed to the leadership of the Department for the Execution of Sentences with a proposal to urgently begin discussing ways to introduce effective civil democratic control in the penitentiary system, aimed, primarily, at stopping torture and cruel treatment in Ukrainian prisons.

Earlier, the Vinnytsia Human Rights Group stated that on Friday, 21 August, employees of the Vinnytsia prison No. 1 of the State Department for the Execution of Sentences brutally beat several prisoners. The organisation published a video report on the internet about the beating of one of the victims.

see also the video with the beaten prisoner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe-hK5tlVMc