Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is missing. Authorities say that she has been transferred to another prison, but her lawyers and family have had no contact with her since October 21st. Some have suggested that, based on standing regulations, she will be able to contact the outside world within five days of transfer.
Below, we have published a letter from Tolokonnikova, published by The New Times last week, written because she suspected that she was going to be transferred. The letter describes the frightening conditions under which many prisoners live, especially those facing transfer. In a previous letter, Tolokonnikova described the harsh working conditions in the prison, similar to slave labor. – Ed.
The New Times publishes here a new letter from Nadezhda Tolokonnikova which according to her husband Pyotr Verzilov, she requested to be sent to our correspondent Zoya Svetova through her former attorney, Violetta Volkova.
According to The New Times, Tolokonnikova in the next few days, perhaps over the weekend, may be transported by convoy to another region. The transport may be long, but the Federal Corrections Service (FCS) promises that the defendant in the Pussy Riot case will be transported “in a separate compartment.”
On the evening of 17 October, I was summoned to the checkpoint at the labor camp hospital, Medical Treatment Center No. 21, in order to drop off a parcel. A grinning young woman from the checkpoint, time after time, on instructions from the administration, had not allowed lawyers, human rights defenders, and my husband to visit me, and now passed me several magazines. She sat me down with concern on the bench, letting slip, “Wait for the convoy back at the building.” I waited for ten minutes. The door opened, and people ran in and out feverishly, throwing something down and rearranging things for the whole 10 minutes. They aimed a video camera at me. There are about 10 employees at No. 21. There is the deputy head, the officers — that’s it. They were all there. The video camera was in the hands of Aleksandr Ivanovich Chetyryov, who in January 2013 was happy to write a report against me (“did not greet people,” while I was in the dispensary with severe headaches), and who stubbornly refused to accept any of my statements during that stay.
First page of handwritten letter from labor camp by Nadezhda Tolokonnikova
(“I don’t have the right to accept anything from you. I am not obliged to you” [he said]) The security officials, hurrying, barked at me, “You are discharged from the clinic. You are being sent to the colony. Emergency transfer.” I ask where I was going. “To Corrective Labor Colony No. 13,” the security guard answered. “Show me the notice about the transport,” I asked. “We are not obliged to do anything” – I receive the magic phrase in reply — “But you’re arguing. The order says No. 13.” I look and it really does say No. 13. I am surprised. I try to ask why there is such a big hurry. All my things are there at the checkpoint. Who was able to pack my things and when, while I was getting the magazines — I don’t know. Later it turned out that not all my things were packed. The clinic No. 21 employees stuffed my bags and threw them in the van.
I was pushed forcibly toward the door. “Are there any complaints or statements? You are being turned over to the custody of the convoy,” they said, in the usual phrases of the convoy. “Yes, I have a severe headache,” I replied. I had my usual attack of pain, that no kind of pain-killer could remove. The convoy insisted on calling a medic. “You have to check her blood pressure and conduct an exam,” the doctor concluded. “That’s it! That’s it!” the two clinic deputy heads cried. “Quickly into the van, now! No checks! Quickly now! Quickly! Let’s go!” Torchkov, the clinic regimenik [official in charge of ensuring the inmates follow the regimen outlined in the Corrective Labor Code–Ed.] threw me into the van like a crate of vegetables. He slammed the door of the cage. I took off. The night before, on 16 October, I had appealed to the head of clinic No. 21 with a request for help. I wrote him a statement with a request to provide me with personal security under Art. 13 of the Russian Federation Code of Criminal Procedures. I explained that at No. 14, I was going to face revenge from the administration of the colony for the truth I had told about their operation, and the nastiness and brutality of those highly-placed convicts whom the administration deliberately sicced on me for my whole term there.
Yamashkin, deputy of the Dubrav prosecutor was personally notified by me on 17 October that at No. 14, I was threatened with danger. Also notified by me with repeated written statements was the director of the Federal Corrections Service (FCS) of Russia, the Prosecutor General’s Office, and Simchenkov, head of FCS for Mordovia. On the morning of 17 October, Klishkov, head of clinic No. 21, explained in reply to my distress that according to his information, I was being sent to Colony No. 13. And there, I would be safe. “There is no question of No. 14, what are you saying!” he assured me. So, I was stuffed into the van, and sent off. Half an hour went by. We arrived. And I was at No. 14.
At the checkpoint for No. 14, I informed the officers of the colony that I had been transferred into this institution by deceptive and unlawful means, with the use of physical force. I explained that I feared for my health, both psychological and physical, while located in No. 14. In connection with this, I immediately announced a hunger strike. I demanded the guarantee to me of real personal safety and transfer to a colony in another region. Because in that region, in Mordovia, terrible things are done to people. They are lied to, they are stuffed into vehicles by force, and they are refused a hearing, they are pressured, they are destroyed, and what is human in them is destroyed. People are turned into cowed beasts. And I admit – yes, I fear for my fate. Because I don’t know what will happen to me tonight. What the henchmen from the FCS for the Republic of Mordovia will decide to do with me. And I also fear for the fate […] of convicts with whom I briefly but fully communicated at clinic no. 21.
We talked about the Mordovian zones [labor camps]. And these people, who were serving their sentence in Colony No. 2, told me about monstrous things. It is what I had heard about before, of course, but I couldn’t comprehend it. For complaints to the prosecutor’s office and the Human Rights Ombudsman, [a prisoner] did not leave the punishment cell. She was beaten and tortured with cold, and they deliberately opened all the doors in the middle of winter. Even the guards watching her froze, and complained. And she was only in an orange dress and underpants. For talking to me, [the prisoner] was immediately, on 15 October, sent from the clinic to No. 2. She was warned that “they are expecting you there.” I don’t know what is happening to her now, but I would like there to be some sort of public oversight so that torture, both physical and psychological, is not used against the convicts who are prepared to speak the truth about the colonies. [The prisoner] is one of those kamikazes who speaks about the colony as it is. Demand information from the FCS about her, don’t let them destroy her; let them know that convicts are not creatures without rights, that there is a society which is prepared to defend their rights. Another convict, [The prisoner] who gets around with two canes, very slowly, hunched over, has had her health ruined in the places of incarcerations; she went into prison healthy. She has paraparesis of the lower extremities and an intervertebral hernia.
On 15 October, despite this, she was refused any treatment at clinic No. 21, and was sent to the prisoner transport. However [she] refused to get into the van, and made a statement about the start of a hunger strike, and hunger strikes until the prosecutor is summoned and until she is given medical treatment to relieve the constant pain in her back and legs. They didn’t start stuffing her into the van by force, but took her away to the punishment cell at No. 21. “When you get to Colony No. 2, Kemyayev there will show you,” they promised her. Kemyayev is the regimenik for No. 2, and infamous throughout the whole system as a sadist. “Better I die from hunger then from beatings, torture, and humiliation. They already did this to me before my departure for clinic No. 2 for the fact that I spoke up on behalf of those beaten. I myself was put in a cage for days and beaten. And then they will say that I hanged myself, as they always do… I am afraid. I pray to the Lord that they not allow such lawlessness,” was the last thing I heard from [the prisoner]. I was taken away to No. 14. She remains on a hunger strike.
Today, Friday, 18 October 2013, they were once again supposed to transport her. They still didn’t provide any medical help. I asked my lawyers to visit [prisoner 1] and [prisoner 2] in No. 2. I am responsible now for the fate of these people since they received emergency transport to No. 2 due to talking with me. They were directly told of this. Most likely, however, the lawyers will not be allowed into No. 2. As they were not allowed to see me in No. 2, either. And this is frightening.