The ECHR communicated complaints from relatives of two HIV-positive convicts who died in colonies

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has communicated complaints from relatives of two HIV-positive convicts who died in correctional colonies in the Orenburg and Samara regions, reported on Tuesday with reference to the ECHR website. the human rights organization “Zona Prava”

The relatives of a prisoner in IK-8 of the Federal Penitentiary Service in the Orenburg Region appealed to the ECHR. In May 2009, a man diagnosed with HIV fell ill with tuberculosis in the colony. He was taken to a tuberculosis hospital, from where he was soon discharged. Later he was taken to IK-5. The man said that the treatment was not carried out in full, and dark spots were found in the right lung. In 2010, the prisoner was diagnosed with kidney failure and pneumonia. At the same time, the man lost the ability to walk, but a special medical commission recommended continuing his treatment in a colony. The convict's wife asked to send her husband to the regional tuberculosis hospital, but the administration of IK-5 refused to do this, saying that the colony did not have enough funds to transport him. On May 16, the prisoner died.

In addition, relatives of another convict who died on December 20, 2011 in IK-6 of the Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service in the Samara Region sent a complaint to the ECHR. According to them, the man did not receive medical care during his nine years of imprisonment, and later contracted tuberculosis in the colony. Law enforcement agencies refused to initiate criminal proceedings against the mother of the deceased against employees of the Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service. The court rejected the woman’s claim against the Russian Ministry of Finance for failure to provide adequate medical care to her son, Zona Prava reports.

The wife and mother of the men who died in the colony complained to the European Court about a violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, namely the lack of adequate medical care in places of detention. The Strasbourg court asked the Russian government specific questions in both cases: whether the convicts were provided with adequate medical care in places of deprivation of liberty, which specialists examined them, and whether they were competent. The government will have to answer whether the Russian authorities did everything to save the lives of the men, whether the investigation into the deaths of the convicts complied with the Convention, and whether the mother of the deceased prisoner of IK-6 had the opportunity to have effective legal remedies within the country.