Muslim inmates in Russia’s Ulyanovsk region accuse prison guards of abuse

Prison guards in the city of Dimitrovgrad, in Russia’s Ulyanovsk region, have been accused by five inmates of forcibly shaving convicts’s beards off, insulting them on religious and ethnic grounds, beating them, and interrupting their prayers, according to The Civic Assistance Committee, a Russian human rights NGO.

Three inmates told human rights activists that they were either forced to shave or forcibly shaved in early July. The prisoners said they used to trim their beards and hair with special shaving attachments that the prison guards confiscated and broke.

“They demanded that we shave all our hair and beards completely off with electric shavers. I refused because it violates my rights. A prison worker responded that ‘he is the law here’,” one of the convicts said.

He was then apprehended, while one of the workers “started hitting him with a shaver on the neck, he started bleeding below the chin”. A few hours later, the prisoner stabbed himself with a sharpened wire between the ribs. In doing so, he sought to “draw attention of the public and relevant authorities to the serious violations of his rights”.

The inmate was taken to hospital, where he underwent surgery and was then transferred to a different prison.

According to two more prisoners, other Muslims were also shaved by prison workers against their will. This procedure only leaves them with strips of hair on the head and beards in the end. Some inmates choose to shave it all off themselves “to avoid looking horrible”.

“It’s damp … there’s mould on the walls, and cockroaches, spiders, and millipedes crawl in the cells. If convicts complain about the terrible conditions, they get punished,” the NGO writes.

In addition, the prison administration actively interferes with Muslim prayers by turning up the music or radio, confiscating prayer carpets and religious literature, and conducting searches during prayers. Some staffers even add pork to the food, forcing Muslim inmates to avoid meals, the NGO said.

“Prison workers groundlessly insult us, by branding us terrorists, extremists, murderers, and so on, particularly hurling racial slurs at us,” one of the convicts said.

Last year, inmates at the prison went on hunger strike and slashed their wrists to protest the torture they claim they have endured at the hands of prison staff.