Relatives of prisoners revolt against the conditions of the Lukyanivske SIZO

Relatives of the arrested who are in the capital’s Lukyanivske SIZO insist that their loved ones behind bars are not receiving proper medical care, and their appeals for hospitalisation are ignored by the administration.

As the “1+1” channel reports, nine arrested persons have died from illnesses in the Lukyanivske SIZO this year alone. How many of them are in need of treatment is unknown. At the same time, according to information from the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, the court eventually finds barely half of the arrested innocent.

The relatives of the arrested talk about the terrible conditions of detention of prisoners and the failure to provide them with necessary medical care.

What is really happening in the medical unit of the SIZO is a secret behind seven seals. Journalists were invited, but were only allowed to the threshold of the institution, explaining this by its special status.

In the medical unit of the Lukyanivske SIZO, there are forty-two beds for three thousand detainees. Lawyers who have had to be there assure us: only a chosen few can get into the medical unit. “Prisoners say: to get into the medical unit, you need to bring an argument to the SIZO administration, to make it interesting. And it turns out that the medical unit is a resort; those who pay sit there, and those who are in need of treatment become disabled,” said lawyer Oleh Veremiyenko.

The SIZO administration denies such accusations. “The lawyer who gave you the information perhaps pursued his own goals, perhaps was earning money, this is his activity,” replied the head of the SIZO, Serhiy Starenkyi.

According to the channel’s information, the failure to provide medical care and improper treatment in the SIZO has more than once become the subject of consideration in the European Court. The decisions were not announced in favour of the state, but treatment did not get any better.