Naama Issachar's temporary transfer to a remote prison, before being returned to Moscow, is just an easy example of the administration's use of the judiciary and prison facilities. • A look into the penal colonies across Russia clarifies the size of the prisoners' nightmare

• Naama Issachar during her appeal in Russia

  Photo:

  AFP

The sight of the concrete walls of Prison No. 11 in the town of Noginsk, 70 miles northeast of the Russian capital Moscow, can also break the spirits of brave and experienced people. This is one of the toughest prisons in European Russia: overcrowded cells, poor food and jailer abuse are just some of the complaints that can be found online about the institution, which is subject to the Russian Ministry of Justice.

In 2018, the detention center adjacent to the jail received media exposure after "anonymous" were charged with severe sexual abuse of a prisoner. It is unclear what happened to the investigation, which was publicized in the country's media, but the complaint reveals little of what is happening behind the facility's gray and high walls.

In this prison she found herself this week Naama Issachar, the Israeli young woman convicted of smuggling drugs into Russia after a few canisters of cannabis were found in her suitcase. Seven and a half years in prison were sentenced, and it is unclear what led the Russian authorities to transfer the young woman to this tough facility. It was only after the information leaked to the media in Israel and around the world that Naama was returned to the prison where she was staying before the appeal she filed and which was rejected by the Moscow District Court.

In Jerusalem, Naama is used by the Kremlin to play political pressure in order to release a Russian "hacker" who was imprisoned in Israel (and extradited in November to the United States) or win other concessions. And in the vast array of prisons and penal colonies, not to protect the public and uphold the law, but to achieve the government's goals.

To that end, Russia holds a vast, dark archipelago of detention facilities, prisons, penal colonies, "educational" colonies scattered across the vast land from the Baltic to the Pacific. In order to understand the scope of the phenomenon, one must understand that Russia is the third country in the world in the proportion of civilians imprisoned in it, after China and the US.

A 2017 Amnesty Human Rights Report on state prisons shows that 623,242 people are being held in prison, some awaiting trial for extended periods. The report also reveals widespread reports of inmate abuse.

Inheritance from the Soviet Union

In order to grasp the magnitude of the terrorist array of prisons in Russia, the history of the development of prison institutions in the country must be understood. The Russian Federation inherited the Soviet Union's notorious prison service, which included dozens of punitive colonies aimed at political opponents and tough criminal prisons to which "undesirable elements" of society were also thrown.

A vast, dark archipelago of detention facilities scattered throughout Russia. Jail entrance in northern Yamal region // Photo: IP

In the 1990s, when Russia was experimenting with a transition to a democratic system, many of the penal camps closed down and some prisons were reformed, a reform that continued under President Putin's rule that came to power in 2000. But despite the changes, many features of the Soviet system still haunt the system of punishment. Russian.

One of these features is the use of penal colonies, an ancient tradition of Russian authorities. The colonies are located in isolated and remote sites, divided into several types where different regimes exist, depending on the nature of the incarcerated place. Some colonies allow prisoners a degree of freedom, while in others there is an abrasive routine of hard work and abuse.

Another feature of the Russian prison system is the tendency to imprison prisoners away from their homes, sometimes hundreds and even thousands of miles away. Not for nothing, the Issachar family feared that Naama would be sent to a remote prison, even in Siberia. "Distance is a way to prepare prisoners for the prison experience. They are far from home, far from anyone who can help them," says Alexei Sokolov, a Russian human rights activist for the Amnesty organization.

The intense and ongoing criticism of prisoners' harsh conditions, sometimes in crowded train cars for hours on end, has prompted the Duma, the Russian parliament, to this year discuss a new law that would require the imprisonment of convicts in prisons close to where they live.

Torture and human rights violations

Cell phone cameras and social networks have repeatedly revealed the brutal conduct in Russian prisons. In July 2018, the state stormed after particularly difficult videos were released showing prisoner Andrei Ivanov, imprisoned in a notorious penal colony near the city of Yaroslavl, being dragged by jailers to what is cynically called "educational work."

Naked Ivanov was hit on the head, face and limbs as he pleaded for help. In a video revealed by the Novoya Gazeta newspaper, the guards are seen dragging him around the prison camp, from room to room, humiliated with their laughter, while, among other things, they also hear versions of abuse.

"What you see in the video is happening here all the time," he told Western media Ruslan Wahapov, another prisoner in the penal colony. "It's a perfect illustration of the daily life in the camp. You hear the guards laugh, say 'We left him blue from the beating.' The guards beat me five minutes after I arrived at the camp."

But the abuse is not only in the toughest penal colonies. For years, the penal colony in Vostochni, in Omansky district, was considered a type of "example colony" with a bakery, sewing workshop, clubhouse, and even a prison swimming pool. The regime in which it is considered open and the so-called prisoners are free to move at will. However, in 2018, media outlets in Russia revealed that inmates in the area had been severely abused for years, which had been silenced by prison authorities.

"The guards said that now the suffering begins," a prisoner told the news site, "and then they strangled me and threw me to the floor like a child throwing a doll. They hit my head with a heavy bone and let me wear women's clothes."

The response from the Russian Prison Service was nothing short of amazing. "Many human rights activists visit the site on a regular basis. It is a type of model for our method," Irina Koltsina, senior prison service in the region told the news site. "The prisoners did not complain."

The method of incarceration is not only a product of the Soviet past, but also and mainly a way of using the arbitrary legal system and the harrowing conditions of confinement in order to intimidate and silence opponents of the regime, human rights activists and other parties. Now Israel feels what has become the norm for millions of Russian citizens.