The ECHR communicated a complaint about the conditions of transportation of prisoners in paddy wagons

The European Court of Human Rights communicated the complaint of Natalya Kostromina, a resident of the city of Syktyvkar, in which she pointed to the widespread practice in our country of using single-seat cells in prison cars (the so-called “glasses”) to transport two prisoners, the Public Verdict Foundation reports.

Kostromina's complaint will be considered along with complaints from three other residents of the Komi Republic who complain about inhumane conditions in the transport of prisoners. The applicants are represented by the foundation's lawyer, Ernest Mezak.

Official recognition of the existence of the described torture practice was obtained only in 2011, after prisoner Natalya Kostromina complained about it to members of the Public Monitoring Commission (POC) of the Republic of Komi. She told human rights activists that in the summer of 2010, during the escort from a penal colony in the Ivanovo region to one of the pre-trial detention centers in the Komi Republic, she was transported seven times in the same “glass” with another cellmate. Based on these data, the Public Verdict Foundation filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights. And some time later, the head of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia in the Yaroslavl Region, Yuri Dyachenko, in his response to the complaint of the PMC of the Republic of Komi, not only admitted, but also fully justified the fact that his subordinates twice drove Natalya Kostromina along with another woman around Yaroslavl in one "glass" ( in one case, its area was 0.5 square meters, in the other - and 0.4).

The ECHR, in its judgment of November 8, 2005 in the case “Khudoyorov v. Russia” (complaint No. 6847/02), pointed out the inadmissibility of allocating 0.5 square meters of personal space per prisoner in paddy wagon cells, regardless of the duration of their transportation.