FSIN director dismissed due to torture in colonies | News from Germany about Russia | Dw

Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed Alexander Kalashnikov from the post of director of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) of the Russian Federation. Putin’s decree was published on Thursday, November 25, by the Kremlin press service. Arkady Gostev, who served as Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, was appointed the new head of the FSIN.

An informed source told Interfax that the main reason for Kalashnikov’s resignation was “incidents of torture in colonies and pre-trial detention centers in the Saratov region and other regions, which received a wide public response.”

Archive of torture in colonies

In early October, the founder of the human rights project Gulagu.net, Vladimir Osechkin, said that the organization received and removed from Russia several dozen gigabytes of videos, photographs and other documents that confirm the systemic nature of torture in Russian colonies and pre-trial detention centers in Irkutsk, Vladimir and Saratov regions. This information was provided to human rights defenders by the programmer Sergei Savelyev, who was serving time in one of the colonies and was engaged in the maintenance of video recorders and surveillance cameras there.

The publication of Gulagu.net caused a wide response in Russia. Communists in the State Duma called for a parliamentary investigation of torture in Russian colonies. Nevertheless, the State Duma did not support this initiative because of the position of the deputies from the ruling United Russia party.

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation announced the initiation of criminal cases against employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service on the facts of sexual violence and abuse of office with the use of violence. In total, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office, on the facts of the use of violence in places of deprivation of liberty, which took place in the institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service in the Khabarovsk Territory, Belgorod Region, Irkutsk, Saratov regions, more than 35 criminal cases are being investigated.

See also:

• Forgotten Stalinist GULAG

  Date of death unknown

  One of the chapters of the book “Forgotten” is dedicated to Raoul Wallenberg. The Swedish diplomat saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the war. After the capture of Budapest, he was secretly transported to Moscow. Presumably (not exactly known) died at Lubyanka in 1947. Monuments to Raoul Wallenberg have been erected in many cities around the world. This bust stands in the courtyard of the State Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow.

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  Forgotten Stalinist GULAG

  On the construction of the White Sea Canal

  In the former construction department of the Belomorkanal in Medvezhyegorsk. The Stalin White Sea-Baltic Canal connected the White Sea with Lake Onega, which has access to the Baltic Sea. It was built in 1931-1933 by the forces of prisoners. According to official figures, almost 13 thousand prisoners died here during the construction of the canal.

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  Forgotten Stalinist GULAG

  Asterisk in Butugychag

  Monument to the guard in Butugychag. Translated from the Even language, Butugychag means “bad place”. Uranium and tin ore was mined here, and the death rate among prisoners was especially high. The future famous poet Anatoly Zhigulin survived this camp. Later he wrote: “Covetous joy, generous misfortune and blue ringing ore … Hello to you, my fate is a lever, the Butugychag uranium mine!”

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  Forgotten Stalinist GULAG

  Monuments to leaders

  Lenin, Stalin and others. The Muzeon Art Park in Moscow is an open-air museum of socialist realism sculpture. Among the 800 monuments, there are many monuments to the leaders of the 1930-1950s – the very ones who signed the execution lists. A photograph of one of these lists, which was signed by all members of the Politburo, including Stalin, is also given in the book “Forgotten”.

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  Forgotten Stalinist GULAG

  Wall in “Muzeon”

  Memorial wall to victims of Stalinist repressions in Moscow. Park of Arts “Muzeon”. Sculptor E. Chubarov

  Author: Efim Shuman

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