True Stories #390 - The Punishment Cells

Russia's prison system is its own terrorist organization.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-stories-with-seth-andrews--5621867/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Seth Andrews, and what you're about to hear is
a true story. This one is pretty intense. It is
not for everyone. It is certainly not a story with
a happy ending, but it's something that human rights proponents

(00:22):
should be more aware of and not all worthy and
necessary journeys are easy. Once here's the story. It is
a terrible time to be a freedom activist in Russia
because the penalties are severe. Just asked Beechislav Kryokov, who
was a twenty year old student activist in Moscow in

(00:44):
twenty eighteen. He was one of ten people arrested as
terrorists and sent to prison. His pre trial nightmare took
two years, and then finally he was sentenced to six
years at the Ik two penal colony in southwestern Rostov
in Russia. After an initial quarantine, he was required to

(01:07):
do fifteen days in a literally chilling place called the
punishment cell. Punishment cells usually hold two, four or maybe
six prisoners in a standing room only concrete box measuring
six square meters. There was just one sink, a stool,

(01:29):
one bed, which isn't horizontal. It is strapped vertically to
the wall, so you can only lean against the mattress.
You can't even lie down, and of course there was
no toilet, just a hole in the floor. And in
many punishment cells, all day, every day, for every moment

(01:49):
that you are awake, you are not allowed to sit
or lie down under the eyes of the guards, under
the shadow of their batons and fiss you are required
to just stand there. You cannot read, there is no
TV or radio. You can't speak to other prisoners. Prison

(02:10):
policy is for you, allegedly, the worst of the worst,
the most hardened and dangerous of the prisoners. The policy
is to stand and stand and stands, and the only
reprieve is when you sleep during sleeping hours, and you
do get a single walk a day. Russian law allegedly

(02:33):
restricts this nightmare to fifteen days before prisoners are supposed
to be released into more relaxed conditions two eternal weeks
plus a day. But wardens and guards have found a loophole.
If you rub somebody the wrong way, or the guards
don't like you, or you're guilty of an infraction, the

(02:55):
second you step outside that punishment cell, you can be
sentenced to another fifteen days. And this can happen over
and over and over again Beech's love. Kreyukov was just
such an inmate. He was called an extremist for daring
to demand fair treatment for citizens of his country. He

(03:16):
was a terrorist, and he was forced into fifteen days
standing next to four other men in a concrete box
from dawn to sundown. He got no extra food. The
food he got was slop. In the spring and winter,
the prison turns the heat off, so the prisoner's risk
freezing to death. Kryukov would shiver in that room for

(03:39):
fifteen days, and then another fifteen and another fifteen. By
the time his third stint was done, he was told
he looked like he had come out of Auschwitz. A
journalist and activist named Olga Romanov has been leading an
effort to help these inmates escape the nightmare of the

(04:00):
Prisoner's Rights Organization Russia behind Bars, and she says the
exploitation of prisoners is a continuation of the Stalinist mentality
that has remained in place under Vladimir Putin. The group
has exposed the rampant abuses and torture that go on
in Russian prisons. Yet, as you would expect, Olga and

(04:23):
her group have been designated a foreign agent organization by
the Russian government. Of course, Putin has denied all of
these abuses. He has gone public saying that Russia has
the best prison system in the world. But I mentioned exploitation,
and here's what I'm talking about. It has come to

(04:43):
light that the horrible treatment inside these prisons has a
political advantage for Putin, making things so miserable that when
the government shows up and gives the inmates an option
to leave and become a soldier invading Ukraine and advancing

(05:04):
Putin's conquest, the choice is an easy one. It's better
to get out of prison, breathe some free air, and
be a conscript for war beyond the punishment cells, maybe
even survive and get a pardon. Better to do that
than remain a resident in a freezing hell. Other forms

(05:25):
of exploitation continue as well. The inmates are easy meat
to become slave labor, making tons and tons and tons
of money for those who don't have to pay these
laborers anything. Veitchislav koreu Kov spent four years in detention

(05:46):
before his release in October of twenty twenty two. Of course,
he runs the risk, along with others, to be re arrested,
and right now thousands remain locked behind the eyes and
ears of much of the rest of the world. There
are secretly taped videos that occasionally make it out into

(06:06):
the rest of the world. Netflix has done a series
called Inside Russia's Toughest Prisons, and the BBC broadcast a
documentary titled that Condemned the story of Storyville, Russia's Toughest Prison. Certainly,
there are terrifying human rights abuses that happen in prisons

(06:27):
all around the world, with overcrowding, neglect, gang violence, guard
abuse spanning from Argentina to Kenya to El Salvador to
Maricopa County, Arizona. All of this raises the questions that
good people should ponder. Does the alleged inhumanity of another

(06:48):
demand inhumanity from us? At what point do law enforcers
become the terrorists? And will the standing men ever be
given the mercy of rest for the moment? The unthinkable
realities which remain in the punishment cells are a true

(07:10):
story True Stories podcast dot Com