Human rights activists speak about torturing Chechens in Russian prisons

At a press conference in Moscow on February 10, human rights activists reported that natives from Chechnya, who had been tortured with the aim to knock out evidences and then sentenced to long imprisonment terms, are still tortured in prisons out of hatred.

Lev Ponomaryov, head of the Movement "For Human Rights", has stated that every year the Fund in Defence of Prisoners' Rights of prisoners receives several thousands complaints from inmates against mockeries and torture. Many of them are from natives from the Caucasus.

Some of the top managers in the colonies are former militaries who had fought or served in Chechnya. They start taking vengeance on Chechens at once and with no rational aim, as Svetlana Gannushkina, chair of the Committee "Civil Assistance", asserts.

Currently, in the colony located in the Volgograd Region a Chechen inmate Zubair Zubairaev is tortured. This was reported to the press conference by his sister Malika and Imran Ezhiev, who managed to meet the prisoner.

Mr Ezhiev demonstrated Zubairaev's photos to journalists showing traces of nails with which his feet were hammered to the floor and of other torture. The photos show that Zubairaev's dressings covering his wounds are bleeding with purulence. At his meeting with the human rights defender, Zubairaev explained that his dressings were not changed for a month, and it was additional punishment. As a result of beatings with truncheons, Zubairaev's head has increased in size, and his dressings had an intolerable purulent smell.

The human rights activist said that the colony administration had allowed him to make photos, having stated that the prisoner was himself disturbing his wounds, aiming to draw attention.

Meanwhile, according to Malika, Zubair's sister, the colony managers threatened "to finish him" if Zubairaev did not stop complaining to human rights activists.