Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, member of the punk rock band Pussy Riot, has ended her hunger strike after 9 days. Nadya was transferred to a prison hospital last week, and is reportedly in bad health.
On September 28th, her lawyer, Irina Khrunova, told Novaya Gazeta that Nadya is in danger inside the prison, and is hunger striking in order to raise attention to the work conditions that she and other prisoners face. Khrunova echoed a sentiment that Nadya has expressed before: that she wants to be a witness to conditions in Russia’s gulags. – Ed.
Marina Tokarev [of Novaya Gazeta]: Today [28 September] is the sixth day of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s hunger strike. What news have you had from her?
Irina Khrunova [lawyer for Nadezhda Tolokonnikova]: To be honest, I am in somewhat of a panic. The last time we heard from Nadya was Thursday night [26 September]. She reported that she had health problems. On Friday [27 September] she was transferred to the infirmary. I still don’t know the reason for this. On the one hand, I realize that on the sixth day of a hunger strike, the state of her health likely really did worsen. On the other hand, I understand even better: the colony [administration] did not like it that Nadya was reporting every day what was going on inside.
MT: That is, they wanted to isolate her in order to shut off the information?
IK: Of course! Yesterday she was unable to meet with her husband, today a meeting with her lawyer didn’t work out, and the colony is saying: “…the prisoner’s condition of health does not permit it.” But we cannot check whether that is true or not.
MT: For those who have not read her letters: what does “incarceration in inhumane conditions” mean? Five hours of sleep, a 12-15 hour work day, oppression of the sick and HIV-infected working alongside others?
IK: It’s a question above all that any sick persons, including the HIV-infected, are forced to work on the same basis. By the way, let us destroy a stereotype: at a factory, even a sewing factory, it is impossible to get infected with AIDS, specialists are certain. But despite the fact that the HIV-infected do not feel well, they work on the same basis as the healthy prisoners.
Their routine is not an easy one. If before, Nadya and I would coordinate when I would visit her, and she would pick either the first or second shift, now there is no such system. Everyone is working on the same shift.
MT: That is, not the lawful eight hours, but more?
IK: But the colony is cunning enough to make their work voluntary! Everyone writes statements every day that they are requesting to be allowed to go to the job site more than 8 hours, because they want to work a little bit more. They write this every day. And this sort of paper is essentially compulsory; if you don’t write one, you will have more problems. Naturally with work more than 12 hours, housekeeping chores and so on, there is very little time left for sleep.
MT: It has been learned that they are sewing police uniforms. So the police who are protecting the regime are clothing themselves with the help of slave labor? Is this the Belomorkanal of our time?
IK: In any event, the wages for prisoners operating sewing machines for 12 hours without a break cannot be compared at all to wages on the outside.
MT: Tolokonnikova’s first complaint of inhumane treatment was prepared in May? What has happened in the last four months?
IK: They pressured Nadya and she withdrew these complaints, they weren’t reviewed.
They poured kasha on her head in the cafeteria. It’s hard to imagine what you feel when you are standing along, 500 people are against you, and they all want you to die… “You can’t imagine,” Nadya told me. “What level of hatred there is in the air.” She would have endured even that, but they began to pressure the women she had befriended in prison – one had a reprimand concocted against her which then put her early conditional release in jeopardy; a second woman was transferred into a pressure cell, where they tried to beat her up…and Nadya then withdrew her complaints.
MT: The prisoners don’t want to understand that she is fighting for them as well?
IK: Some of them don’t understand at all, some of them consider her an upstart, some of them understand but think she has attorneys behind her, the public, and they can transfer her at any moment, but they will remain in this hell.
MT: Since the times of the GULAG, people like [neo-Nazi Evgeniya] Khasis, the murderer of [human rights lawyer] Stas Markelov and [journalist] Nastya Baburova have been the bastion of the regime. Now the Russia state is taking murderers as helpers?
IK: Yes, Khasis is a murderer. Yes, she is serving a sentence. But in the eyes of the state, Nadya and Khasis are in the same position: both are convicts with a court sentence. Their [criminal code] articles don’t play any role. Yes, Nadya has two years and Khasis has 18 years; yes, Nadya has a heavy sentence and Khasis has an especially heavy sentence, but they are held in the same corrective institution. Khasis has begun to play an important role in what is happening with Tolokonnikova.
And I’m not surprised that a statement from the Investigative Committee has been published in which there is a reference to Khasis. And why shouldn’t Khasis play on the side of the government?! She still has 14 years to serve, and she wants to earn an early conditional release and reduce her term for murder.
MT: The Mordovian colonies are infamous for their torturous conditions, where they set dogs on people and beat them to death.
IK: I can say only one thing: I believe Nadya, I believe that she is telling the truth about what is happening there.
I am not a politician, I am only an attorney. Nadya did not want conflicts, and tried to improve relations with the administration of the colony, she wanted to show the colony that her purpose was to quietly serve out her sentence, not fight with anyone, but the colony didn’t understand and continued to pressure her. Through the hands of other convicts.
MT: Your next moves?
IK: We have initiated several inspections. Now we are awaiting a big report from the Presidential Council on Human Rights. Members of the Council differed in their opinions, each will express their own view. Kannabikh believes that yes, there are problems, but they aren’t so substantive as Nadya writes in her letter. They must be removed, but on a lawful basis. Myslovsky, as it turns out, a former investigator for the Prosecutor General’s Office, says that everything Tolokonnikova has written is pure nonsense, everything is fine, she’s in a super colony. Yet another member of the Council whose name is Shablinsky radically took Nadya’s side, and says that he saw frightened, crying women. What the opinion of [journalist] Yelena Masyuk will be, I don’t know. An inspection from the Federal Corrections Service is coming. Two officials have visited from the office of Lukin [Russian human rights ombudsman].
MT: Our state is entirely managed by men. With their help, a system has been constructed which takes us back to the times of the Inquisition.
IK: The ones stitching up state orders by exploiting women prisoners are making billions. We must understand that among the women who are there are somebodies’ mothers, somebodies’ wives. But it often happens that no one is waiting for them. That no one needs them. That no one protects them. How our society will be formed under conditions of total slavery and total malice depends now on us as well.
MT: Why is the government so afraid of Nadya Tolokonnikova?
IK: It is afraid of Maria Alyokhina as well. These defendants don’t fit into the overall context. They are exceptional convicts. The first reason is that they are educated. The second is their level of development. The third is their position in life. The fourth is the ability to use an attorney. Because as Nadya correctly wrote – there is no way out for all of them from the zone [prison]. There are no letters or complaints; the convicts are under the total power of the colony. In the event that the warden is a human being, everything is fine, as it is now with Alyokhina. All of Masha’s letters reach me. With Nadya it doesn’t work. In her colony, the sentence cuts people off from life. They are afraid of Tolokonnikova because she can shout for the whole world to hear – and I hope they will hear her.
MT: Your main purpose today?
IK: To have Nadya transferred to another colony. Because there can never be any question of her safety in this colony now, ever. Even if everything calms down and they tell us the conflict is over, Tolokonnikova is going to work, everyone smiles, she is working only eight hours a day, but even so, I am not certain that in the remainder of the sentence she has yet to serve, something won’t happen to her.
I will continue to defend Nadya’s position through various means: petitions, complaints. If necessary, we will go to court. The strategy will be developed in the course of events; we don’t know what the Investigative Committee will say, what the prosecutor’s office will say.
MT: Name the people who provoke the most concerns.
IK: First of all, there is Kupriyanov, the deputy head of the colony who has threatened Nadya personally. And she has also named several convicts who are close to the administration, including Khasis.