Visit of human rights defenders to the colony

PRESS RELEASE
ADMINISTRATION OF THE STATE
DEPARTMENT OF UKRAINE
FOR THE EXECUTION OF SENTENCES
IN THE ZAPORIZHZHIA REGION

Criminals are trying to enlist public support. On the statement of the Vinnytsia Human Rights Group: “We saw only what we wanted to see”

On 25 September 2010, following the results of a joint working visit to the Kamianske Correctional Colony No. 101 by staff of the Administration of the SDES in the Zaporizhzhia region and the Vinnytsia Human Rights Group (VHRG), a meeting was held, during which the parties exchanged their opinions.
The administration of the department expressed confidence in the necessity for further joint work. In particular, it was noted that the representatives of the Vinnytsia Human Rights Group had listened to only a small portion of the convicts. Convicts with a highly negative orientation were not sufficiently covered by legal educational work.
Questions that are of primary importance for the convicts remained without answers from the human rights defenders. These included, among other things, illegal pre-trial detention in temporary holding facilities (IVSs) and the disappearance of passports there, legal problems when processing pensions in places of detention and the imperfection of pension legislation, inadequate provision of the right to defence during court proceedings, the restoration of inheritance deadlines, and many other issues, to which the convicts never received answers.
As was pointed out during the meeting, the insufficient attention of the head of the VHRG, Dmytro Hroisman, and his assistant, Oleh Veremiienko, to the bulk of the convicts—most of whom are simple workers—caused justified complaints against the human rights defenders. The administration of the colony, which had ensured the unhindered access of VHRG representatives to the protected territory, was also put in an awkward position.
Evaluating the results of the visit to IC No. 101, Dmytro Hroisman drew a number of controversial parallels, with which the management of the SDES administration could not agree. For instance, the human rights activist unequivocally compared prisoners to rats and suggested that correctional staff use the experience of vivariums in their work, where experiments are conducted on the aforementioned animals.
To the reasonable remark that convicts are far from being rats, Hroisman retorted: “The zoopsychology is the same.”
Continuing his offensive attacks, the Vinnytsia human rights activist turned to personal matters and allowed himself to mock the physiological characteristics of one of the colony’s leaders. Unfortunately, Hroisman did not want to inquire about the state of health of that employee.
Such a superficial, one could say sensationalist, approach to studying the problems of penal institutions received a negative assessment from the management of the SDES administration. However, the dialogue was not broken off. Those present had already repeatedly heard about Hroisman as a skilled provocateur: during the last presidential elections in Ukraine, he cynically drew a male sexual organ on a ballot (http://vn.20minut.ua/news/167861).
Dmytro Hroisman and his colleague were offered the opportunity to define specific recommendations for improving the daily operations of the Kamianske IC No. 101. The response from the VHRG representatives boiled down to the need to install benches and gazebos in separate local sectors. The human rights defenders also recommended closing the production facility related to granite processing and creating in its place a section for the work of convicts “with a humanitarian mindset”.
Moving on to the topic of complaints from convicts of a negative orientation, which received wide coverage in a number of mass media, Dmytro Hroisman and his assistant once again emphasised their unwillingness to communicate with the bulk of those serving sentences in the Kamianske IC No. 101. According to the human rights defenders, they are not prosecutors or journalists, so the opinion of both sides does not interest them.
To the surprise of those present, Dmytro Hroisman particularly emphasised that, if necessary, he and his staff would use all legal and illegal methods to discredit the bodies and institutions of the penal system. Such a lack of discrimination in means stunned the staff of the criminal-executive system, who had a logical question regarding the purposes of the funding of the VHRG by well-known organisations. Perhaps Hroisman inadvertently revealed the main goal of his group, namely: to organise, at the most critical moments for the country, the discrediting of state authorities that are successfully fulfilling the obligations Ukraine has undertaken to the Council of Europe.
Having carefully listened to the VHRG representatives, the management of the regional administration asked the human rights defenders about their vision of issues related to minimising the influence of the negative element on the bulk of the convicts. A coherent answer did not follow. The human rights defenders referred to the global nature of this problem, which, in fact, justified their unwillingness to talk about it.
The further course of the meeting was determined by Dmytro Hroisman’s admission of a direct connection between his arrival in the Zaporizhzhia region and an agreement reached between the VHRG and individuals who support criminal traditions. The latter handed the human rights defender a pre-prepared list of convicts who were openly dissatisfied with the regime of detention provided for by law.
According to operational information, the arrival of Dmytro Hroisman and Oleh Veremiienko was supposed to be a signal for several convicts to refuse to comply with the lawful requirements of the administration. However, this was prevented by joint preventive actions by the staff of Kamianske IC No. 101 and the prosecutor’s office, which gave the VHRG representatives grounds to groundlessly accuse the prosecutor’s office staff of unprofessionalism.
The human rights defenders evaluated their own stay at IC No. 101 with the following words: “We saw only what we wanted to see.” The subjectivism of such a position is obvious, which was immediately pointed out to Hroisman and Veremiienko.
In the concluding part of the meeting, Oleh Veremiienko suggested that the staff of penal institutions treat every convict as a “blank slate” and give them a “chance to reform”. Undoubtedly, the human rights defender wanted to demonstrate his good intentions, but, without realising it himself, Veremiienko called for the implementation of the methods of punitive medicine once described by Burgess in *A Clockwork Orange*.
In this case, the management of the SDES administration categorically disagreed with the representatives of the Vinnytsia Human Rights Group, pointing to the need to take into account the individual life path of each convict in the process of resocialisation; otherwise, the differentiation of educational influence provided for by law will never be achieved. A person cannot be turned into either a “blank slate” or a “clockwork orange”.
The superficial and incompetent position of the human rights defenders caused frank regret on the part of the host party. Nevertheless, at the end of the meeting, the management of the SDES administration expressed readiness to assist in improving the professional level of Dmytro Hroisman and Oleh Veremiienko. Further joint events are planned for this purpose.

Attached to the press release are 3 photographs of convicts (with statements) who were ignored by D. Hroisman and O. Veremiienko during their visit to IC No. 101.

Inquiry telephones: 214-92-32; (fax) 214-92-31;
(mob.) 050-881-69-90.

PRESS SERVICE
of the Administration of the State Department of Ukraine
for the Execution of Sentences
in the Zaporizhzhia region