103 people went on hunger strike at the special institution of the Federal Migration Service of Kazan

More than 100 people went on a hunger strike in protest against the conditions of detention and the inaction of employees of the Federal Migration Service in a special institution of the Federal Migration Service of Kazan. They report being kept in excessive isolation and deportation cases pending for years. According to those who recorded the video message , 103 people are participating in the hunger strike. They report that in the special institution they are kept in terrible conditions, they are prohibited from using phones, and they are monitored using CCTV cameras. At the same time, the main complaint of the hungry is the inaction of the employees of the Federal Migration Service, because of which people remain in this institution for many months and even years. As one of the hunger strikers named Anton told Mediazona, he has been in a special institution for more than a year - due to problems with documents, the court decided to deport him to Kazakhstan, but the Kazakh side refuses to accept him: “It turns out there is nowhere to deport me.” FMS employees are aware of this problem, but prefer to keep him in the institution. According to Anton, he has all the documents in his hands except his passport, and his mother, wife and daughter are Russian citizens. “I’m not the only one here. There is Babai, a grandfather, he is 60 years old, he suffers from diabetes of the first degree, he is also imprisoned. They are somehow of little interest in this,” says Anton. Already on the second day of the hunger strike, health problems began, he says: “The food and the whole environment here are disgusting, and my body was exhausted. I went on a hunger strike, the second day, and I no longer walk, my temperature is 38, my blood pressure is low. But I’m not going to give up the hunger strike until nothing is decided.” According to him, the institution also contains people who were released from the colony and “on the day of their liberation they were directly rounded up and brought here, although they did not have such a right.” “We received information about the hunger strike, but have not yet gone to the site to check. Previously, we had to visit this special institution and we received complaints from people who were kept there. They complained that they were treated as if they were sentenced to captivity, although this was only a temporary place of residence. They can call their loved ones no more than once a day, transfers to them are limited, not all products can be transferred,” Albert Zaripov, a member of the POC of Tatarstan, told Mediazona. The human rights activist noted that the special institution on Ash Uram Street belongs to the Federal Migration Service, and not the Federal Penitentiary Service or the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and it will take the POC some time to agree with the department’s leadership about visiting it. “We will ask for a visit through the leadership of the PMC, but the Federal Migration Service may refuse us; such a right is not guaranteed to us by law,” Zaripov said.