Anastasia Zinovkina complained about the lack of medical care in prison.

The condition of Russian woman Anastasia Zinovkina, convicted in a drug case in Georgia, has worsened. She received no assistance from prison staff for eight hours, despite being unable to move due to back pain.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," on October 11, Russian activist Anastasia Zinovkina, who is serving time in Special Women's Facility No. 5 in Rustavi, sent an open letter to Georgian Patriarch Ilia II, calling on him to pay attention to the conditions of women in prison. According to the prisoner, women have been unable to shower with hot water for weeks, and any arrest for a woman in Georgia is effectively "the murder of the children she could have given birth to if she hadn't been in prison."

Anastasia Zinovkina told friends about the refusal of staff at the Rustavi women's prison to provide her with medical care in a phone call on October 30. Activist Natia Gabrava described the conversation with the prisoner on her social media page.

According to Zinovkina, on October 29, "she was essentially abused in prison." Gabrava recalled that Zinovkina has serious spinal problems and regularly experiences back pain. “She is regularly given painkillers, but not treated. They don’t provide an orthopedic mattress or pillow. She tried to buy them in prison: first they promised her, then they said they wouldn’t,” reads a post on the activist’s Facebook page*.

According to Zinovkina, the doctor gave her a painkiller injection in the morning, and around noon her condition worsened – “her lower back was pinched so much that she couldn’t get up.”

“She screamed and called for the duty officer for eight hours. Nastya is in solitary confinement, meaning no one can help her get up. The duty officers opened the window and said they couldn’t help. It was shower day, so she couldn’t shower. The duty officers wrote that she refused to shower. Nastya lay there, unable to get up or walk to the toilet, for eight hours,” Gabrava wrote.

That evening, almost nine hours after the attack, a nurse entered Zinovkina's cell but didn't help her get up—she merely "threw a diaper at her and left." Trying to get out of bed, the prisoner fell to the floor and lay there for another three hours, until midnight. Then the guards entered the cell, moved her from the floor to the bed, and wrote in their report that Zinovkina "didn't show up for evening check-in for an unknown reason."

In the morning, Anastasia "was able to crawl to the toilet and throw away the used diaper," and also made herself a corset from scrap materials. As Zinovkina said over the phone, the doctor could only offer her "a stronger painkiller, which the psychiatrist has."

"This isn't neglect, this is torture. Anastasia Zinovkina urgently needs medical help and international attention," wrote Natia Gabrava.

"Caucasian Knot" published a report "The Main Thing About the Persecution of Protest Participants in Georgia." Caucasian Knot compiled materials about the parliamentary elections and the subsequent protests on the page "Elections in Georgia-2024".