"Now you will always be punished"

"To Lenta.ru" I publish a letter from Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Mordovian penal colony

On the morning of September 23 Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, to serve his sentence in the IR-14 (settlement Partsa, Mordovia), he said that starting a hunger strike and refused to work in the sewing workshop of the colony - the massive violation of the rights of convicted women in the workplace. Simultaneously Tolokonnikova filed an appeal to the Investigation Committee at the fact that it threatens to murder the deputy head of the colony. "To Lenta.ru" I publish a letter from Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, in which she explains why enter into an open confrontation with the leadership of the prison.

On Monday, September 23, I declare a hunger strike. This is an extreme method, but I am absolutely convinced that this is the only possible way for me out of the situation.

The prison administration refuses to hear me. But their demands, I will not refuse, I will not sit silently, obediently looking at the way of life in slave-like conditions of the colony people fall down. I demand respect for human rights in the colony, demand compliance with the law in the Mordovian camp. I demand to treat us as human beings, not as slaves.

A year has passed since I came to the IR-14 in the Mordovian village Partsa. As they say zechki "who was sitting in Mordovia, he did not sit at all." About Mordovia areas began to tell me back in jail, 6 in Moscow. The toughest regime, the longest time, the most flagrant injustice. On stage in Mordovia escorted as penalty. Until the last hope: "Maybe, after all, you're not in Mordovia? Maybe it blows over? "I was not carried by, and in the autumn of 2012 I arrived in the camp on the edge of the river bank Partsa.

Mordovia has met me with words of deputy chief of the colony lieutenant colonel Kupriyanov, who actually commanded our IR-14: "And know this: I have political views - a Stalinist." Other Head (a colony ruled in tandem) Colonel Kulagin on the first day called me for an interview, the purpose of which was to force me to admit guilt. "You have sorrow in my life happened. It is so? You have been given two years in prison. And when a person's life sorrow comes, he usually changes his views. You need to admit guilt to leave early on parole. And if you do not recognize - no parole. " I immediately told the chief that I'm going to work only to the provisions of the Labour Code, eight hours a day. "Code Code, but the main thing - the execution of work norms. If you do not do - stay on an extended working day. In general, we are not yet of broken! "- Said Colonel Kulagin.

My whole team works in a sewing workshop for 16-17 hours a day. From 7.30 to 0.30. Sleep - at most four hours per day. The output happens once in a month and a half. Almost all Sunday - workers. Convicted write an application for access to a job in the output with the wording "at will." In fact, of course, there is no desire. But these statements are written in the form of an order at the request of the authorities and zechek broadcasting will of his superiors.

Disobey (not write a statement on access to the industrial park on Sunday, that is, do not go to work until morning) no one dares. Woman 50 years old were asked to leave in zhilzonu not 0.30, and 20.00, to go to bed at 22:00, and at least once a week to sleep eight hours. She felt bad, she had high blood pressure. In response, the company officer convened a meeting where a woman rebuked, humiliated and spat, branded tuneyadkoy. "You do that, most of all want to sleep? Yes on you have to plow, horse! "When someone from the team does not go to work for the release of the doctor, it is also under pressure. "I sewed at 40, that's okay. And you thought that's who will sew for you ?! »

My residential unit in the camp I met the words of one of the convicted, was serving a nine his "Garbage afraid you pressed. They want to do it hands zechek! "Mode in the colony really is designed so that the suppression of the will of man, intimidating him, becoming a dumb servant carried his hands of convicts, who served as masters crews and foremen units receiving instructions from their superiors.

To maintain discipline and obedience to the extensive use of informal punishment "sit in LAN to rebound" (a ban on the entrance to the barracks - autumn, winter whether, in the 2nd detachment, the detachment of invalids and pensioners, lives a woman who one day sitting in LAN I froze my arms and legs so that one leg had to be amputated and fingers), "close the hygiene" (prohibition washed away and go to the bathroom), "close the food supply room and the tea-house" (the ban there own food, drink beverages). And funny and scary when adult woman in her forties said: "So, today we are punished! That's interesting, but tomorrow we will be punished, too? "She can not get out of the shop to pee, you can not take candy from his bag. Prohibited.

Only dream about sleep and sip tea, exhausted, twitching, dirty, condemned becoming obedient material in the hands of the administration, consider us solely as a free rabsily. So, in June 2013, my salary was 29 (twenty-nine!) Rubles. At the same day a team of 150 police sews costumes. Where does the money received for them?

For a complete replacement of the equipment the camp several times recovered money. However, the authorities only repaint sewing machines hands of prisoners. We sew on obsolete equipment. Under the Labor Code, in the event of non-compliance level of equipment with modern industrial standard production quotas should be reduced compared with typical industry norms. But rules only increase. Spasmodic and sudden. "Will you show them that you can give 100 costumes, so they will increase the base to 120!" - Say the experienced machine operator. Instead of giving you can not - or will be punished by the whole party, the whole team. Punished, for example, long group standing on the parade ground. Without the right to visit the toilet. Without the right to take a sip of water.

Two weeks ago, the rate of production of all teams colony was arbitrarily increased by 50 units. And if to this base was 100 suits a day, now it is 150 cop costume. According to the Labor Code to change the norms of production workers should be informed no later than two months. In IR 14 we just wake up one day with a new norm, because it occurred to our superiors "potogonki" (so-called colony convicts). The number of people in the team is reduced (exempt or leave), and the rate increases - respectively, account for the remaining work more and more. Mechanics say you need to repair equipment components and never will be, "No details! When will? Do not you live in Russia, to ask such questions? "During the first months in the industrial area, I almost mastered the profession of engineer. Arte and independently. I am giving up on the car with a screwdriver in his hand in a desperate hope to fix it. Hands scratched and pierced with needles, blood smeared on the table, but you're still trying to sew. Because you - part of the line production, and you must be on a par with experienced seamstresses carry out its operation. And damn car breaks down and breaks. Because you - a brand-new, and in camp conditions, lack of quality equipment to you, of course, gets the most worthless of the motors on the tape. And here again, the motor broke down - and you're running away again to look for a mechanic (which can not be found). And you cry, you goad for the fact that you tear off plan. Sewing skills training course in the colony is not provided. Newbies immediately put the typewriter and allow operation.

"If you were not Tolokonnikova, you would have already *********" - say the approximate zechki superiors. That's right, the other beaten. For underachievement. In the kidneys, in the face. Beat prisoners themselves, and no beating in the women's camp does not occur without the approval and knowledge of the administration. A year ago, before my arrival, beaten to death gypsy 3 Detachment (3rd detachment - detachment of the press, to put those who need to be monitored daily beatings). She died in the medical unit of the IR-14. The death from beatings administration managed to conceal the cause of stroke indicated. In another underachieving squad newcomers seamstresses were stripped naked and forced to sew. A complaint to the administration no one dares to address, because the administration will smile back and let back into the squad, where "The Whistleblower" beaten on the orders of the same administration. The authorities of the colony controlled hazing as a convenient way to get convicted totally submit to the regime of lawlessness.

In the industrial zone prevails alarmingly nervous atmosphere. Ever nevysypayuschiesya and exhausted endless pursuit of the implementation of inhumanly huge production quotas zechki ready to break, yelling loudly, fight over trivial grounds. More recently, a young girl struck his head with scissors because she just did not give trousers. Other recently tried to pierce yourself hacksaw stomach. She was stopped.

Caught in the IR-14 2010 is the year of fire and smoke, we were told that while the fire was selected to the walls of the colony, convicts continued to enter the industrial zone and give the norm. Man could not see two meters because of the smoke, but tied at face wet handkerchiefs, they sewed. In the dining room for dinner because of the state of emergency is not displayed. Several women told how they are terribly hungry, led at the time diaries, which tried to capture the horror of what is happening. When the fire was over, the security department of the colony, these blogs carefully otshmonal that nothing leaked out to freedom.

Sanitary conditions of the colony arranged to convict felt powerless dirty animals. Although the unit has room care, in educational and punitive colony created a single "general hygiene," that there is a room with a capacity of five people, which with all the colonies (800) should come to undercut. Tempted in hygiene rooms, arranged in our barracks, we should not, that would be too convenient. The "total hygiene" - the continued hustle and girls with basins are trying to quickly undercut "his nurse" (as they say in Mordovia), perched on each other's heads. The right to wash your hair, we use once a week. However, this sauna day from time to time will be canceled. The reason - the failure of the pump or jam in the sewers. Sometimes two or three weeks detachment could not wash.

When clogged drain, rooms of hygiene gushing urine and feces flying clusters. We learn how to clean the pipes, but the lack nenadologo - she again becomes clogged. A rope for cleaning at the colony there. Laundry - once a week. Washerwoman looks like a small room with three cranes, of which a thin stream pouring cold water.

From the educational goals it seems condemned always given only stale bread, generously watered milk exclusively Rancid millet and only rotten potatoes. This summer, a colony of imported bulk bags of black slimy potato tubers. The fed us.

On the domestic and industrial Abuse IR-14 can talk endlessly. But most importantly, my main gripe with the colony lies in a different plane. It is that the administration of the colony in the strongest prevents even any complaints and statements pertaining to the IR-14, go beyond its walls. My main gripe with the authorities - that they make people silent. Not disdaining the lowest and vile methods. Because of this problem, follow the rest - inflated base 16 tichasovoy time, etc. The administration feels unpunished and safely inhibits prisoners more and more. I could not understand the reasons why everyone is silent, until she faced the mountain of obstacles, which falls on a prisoner who has decided to act. Complaints from prison just did not go. The only chance - to make a complaint through relatives or a lawyer. The administration of the same petty-vindictive, using all mechanisms of pressure on the convicted person, that he understood better than anyone on his complaints will not, and will only get worse. Use a method of collective punishment - complained to you that there is no hot water - it is switched off at all.

Fragment statements Hope Tolokonnikova
Fragment statements Hope Tolokonnikova
In May 2013 my lawyer Dmitri Dinze appealed to the prosecutor's office to complain about the conditions in IR-14. The deputy chief of the camp, Lieutenant Colonel Kupriyanov instantly set unbearable conditions in the colony. The search for a search warrant, the shaft of reports on all of my friends, withdrawal of warm clothing and the threat of withdrawal of warm shoes. In the production of revenge complex in sewing operations, increase production quotas and artificially created marriage. Sergeant adjacent to my squad, the right hand of Lieutenant Colonel Kupriyanov openly incited convicted cut products, for which I am responsible to the industrial area, for damage to "public property" was an occasion to send me to a punishment cell. She ordered his party condemned to provoke a fight with me.

All you can endure. All that concerns only you. But the collective Colonia method of education is different. Together with you tolerate your squad, the whole colony. And, most vile, those people who have already become your road. One my friend was deprived of parole, to which she was seven years old, carefully exceeded by PROMKO norm. She was given a penalty for what she drank tea with me. On the same day Colonel Kupriyanov transferred it to another party. Another good friend of mine, a very intelligent woman, threw the press unit to daily beatings because she read and discussed with me the Justice Ministry document entitled "Internal Regulations of correctional institutions." For all those who had a chat with me, I was compiled the report. I was hurt because people close to me are suffering. Colonel Kupriyanov, laughing, told me then: "I'm sure you have no friends!" And he explained that everything that happens - because of complaints lawyer Dinze.

Now I realize that I should go on hunger strike in May, even in that situation, but seeing the enormous press, which is included in respect of other prisoners, I stopped the process of complaints colony.

Three weeks ago, on August 30, I turned to Lieutenant Colonel Kupriyanov requested to ensure that all prisoners in the brigade, in which I work, eight hours of sleep. The idea was to reduce the working day from 16 hours to 12 hours. "Well, on Monday the team will work even eight hours," - he said. I know - this is another trap, because eight hours our inflated rate otshit physically impossible. Therefore, the team will not prosper, and will be punished. "And if they find out that this happened because of you, - he continued the Colonel - that bad you have certainly never will be because the other world is not bad." Colonel paused. "And yet - you will never ask for everything. Ask only for himself. I worked for many years in the camps, and always the one who came to me asking for others, went out of my office right in the punishment cell. And you're the first person that is not going to happen ».

In the next few weeks in the unit and PROMKO it was created unbearable conditions. Close superiors convicted began to incite violence in the squad: "You punished the consumption of tea and food for breaks and smoking in the toilet for a week. And now you will always be punished if you do not start behaving differently with new and particularly Tolokonnikova - as starosidy behaved with you in due time. You hit? Bili. They tore your mouths? Vomited. Give them *****. You anything for it will not be ».

I was repeatedly provoked a conflict and fight, but what's the point in conflict with those who do not have their will and acting at the behest of the administration?

Mordvinic convicted afraid of his own shadow. They're intimidated. And if yesterday they were all arranged for you and begged - "do anything with 16 tichasovoy PROMKO!", Then after me befalls press heads, all of them are afraid to even talk to me.

I appealed to the administration with a proposal to resolve the conflict, deliver me from the heads of artificially created pressure zechek under their control, and colony - from slave labor, reducing the time and brought into conformity with the law of the norm that women should sew. But in response to the pressure will only increase. Therefore, on September 23, I declare a hunger strike and refuse to participate in the slave labor camp until the heads of the colony begins to enforce the laws and treat women convicted not as a cast out of the legal field for the needs of cattle garment production, but as people.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova

Source Your text to link ...

Tags

See also

New and interesting