Appeal of Convicted Inmates of the Colony IK 55/3, City of Tovarkovo (Kaluga Region) to Human Rights Activists, Public and Mass Media

On January, 25, 2009 all the penal colony has declared a hunger strike as a protest against the colony administration’s lawlessness towards convicted inmates consisting in tortures and beating of inmates, up to arrival of the commission of the General Prosecutor office and the Ombudsman under the President of RF.

Since 2007, since the new administration had assumed its office, tortures and beating of inmates are never ceased in our colony. All our appeals to local law-enforcement authorities turn against the inmates themselves. The supervision prosecutor office encourages the administration’s actions privately. The matter for the hunger strike was the last straw of patience and fear for our lives.

At night January, 21 at prisoner transport arrival inmates were brutally beaten. Protesting against beating inmates slashed their wrists but were beaten again. As a result of the administration’s lawlessness the inmate Novikov passed away and the inmate V.A.Chikunov was driven to medical unit in grave condition. They were dragged on snow to the medical unit and beaten on their way by “activist” inmates. A week before the inmate V.T.Shakhbazyan hang himself broken down through permanent beating and abuse by the administration. Inmates are being hung by hand-cuffs for 16-18 hours, they have their backside and legs beaten-off by cudgels until skin chapping and confined in a cell until blackness disappears.

We call upon you for your assistance and support, in fact we can do little alone against this Machine of our Dictatorship state. Attraction of mass media and public to this problem is a great matter. We know we are not alone, this lawlessness covers whole Russia but it should be resisted against in some way.
Where are our institutions of civic society? Who is being trained to release from colonies? - Are there revengeful murderers trained?

Sincerely yours,
Convicted inmates of the colony IK-55/3, Tovarkovo town, Kaluga region