Translated material
"Inhuman working conditions." How the defendant in the “Moscow case” Yegor Lesnykh sits
Six defendants in the "Moscow case" are still in colonies. One of them is Yegor Lesnykh. He was supposed to be released on parole back in January, but the prosecutor's office appealed this decision and Lesnykh remained behind bars. There, unbearable working conditions were created for him and other prisoners, the administration specifically reduces the time for visiting relatives, and books from parcels are constantly lost.
Yegor Lesnykh was sentenced to three years in a penal colony under the article on the use of violence not dangerous to health against a representative of the authorities (part 1 of article 318 of the Criminal Code). He was charged with kicking a member of the National Guard in the lower back and also knocking another security official to the ground — this allegedly happened during a protest action on July 27, 2019 in support of independent candidates who were not allowed to participate in the Moscow City Duma elections. The person involved in the "Moscow case" did not admit his guilt.
“I impulsively pulled an employee of the National Guard, they beat a guy and a girl asking for help. Someone was covered in blood. I didn’t use any physical violence against specific employees, I just wanted to stop it, ” Lesnykh said during a court hearing.
In November 2020, Lesnykh had his terms of punishment mitigated and he was transferred to a colony-settlement. In January 2021, the court ruled to release the person involved in the “Moscow case” on parole.
“The prosecutor’s office appealed this decision on the grounds that Yegor allegedly had some kind of violation of the uniform in early November 2020, about which for some reason the colony did not say a word in the court of first instance. We don't know what the violation was. We are sure that it actually did not exist. It arose retroactively in order to somehow appeal against the decision on parole,” says Eldar Garoz, a lawyer from the Public Verdict, representing the interests of the political prisoner.
The second reason for appealing the parole was the fact that Yegor is on a preventive list as prone to attacking an administration employee. In court, the colony officers explained that they put him on the register only because he was convicted under the article on the use of violence against a representative of the authorities. There was no other reason for this.
Lawyer Garoz and his client do not plan to file a second application for parole. At the end of June, he filed a cassation appeal against the decision of the court of appeal to refuse parole. The lawyer is sure that the answer should come soon.
“We believe that last time we had enough grounds for the request for parole to be granted. Even the victims - employees of the Russian Guard - were not against the release of Yegor. Now we are waiting for a response to the cassation appeal, and then we will look at the situation, ”says the defender.
Weekends under the scorching sun
At the time of publication of the text, Yegor Lesnykh is in the colony-settlement (CP) No. 27 in the city of Leninsk. “Both I and Yegor have the feeling that he was sent there on purpose after the appeal. This colony-settlement is considered one of the most tortured in every sense. And in general, according to other defendants in the Moscow case, we have already managed to understand that the conditions of detention in a colony-settlement are sometimes much worse than in a general or even strict regime colony, ”says Yegor’s bride Dasha Blinova.
In 2014, in KP No. 27, a junior inspector of the punishment cell beat a prisoner with a truncheon. The convict was placed in a punishment cell, where he was not provided with medical assistance, and it was the inaction of the paramedic that ultimately led to the death of the prisoner. The realization that such terrible things are happening in the colony puts pressure on Yegor, although no one uses force against him, Dasha notes.
Most of all, in the conditions of her detention, she is embarrassed by the violation of the regime of work in the colony-settlement. “Since May, the temperature in Leninsk has been at least 30 degrees. Sometimes the sun reaches up to 45 degrees. The Volgograd region is mostly a steppe. The convicts there are mainly involved in working in the fields: they are either picking some vegetables, or weeding, or watering. They sometimes work seven days a week under the scorching sun, there are no sheds there. These are absolutely inhuman working conditions,” sighs the fiancee of the person involved in the “Moscow case”.
According to her, prisoners go to work at 7 am. From about one to two they are released for lunch, and only at six or seven in the evening do they return to the barracks.
“This schedule is very exhausting. Yegor has had severe back pain for several weeks. Last week on Sunday, he said that he was physically unable to go to work, - says Dasha. - He is now engaged in weeding, and you stand there bent over all day or crawl on your knees on the ground. They tried to tell him that the head of the colony had issued a decree saying that he had to work seven days a week for some time. As far as I understand it is illegal. Most likely, it's just such manipulations. Luckily, there were no problems in the end. He was taken to a paramedic who gave him painkillers. But here a person doesn’t need an anesthetic, as it were, but just at least give them the opportunity to rest a bit. ”
Dasha is sure that Egor is protected by a shield of publicity. Colony employees are afraid of publicity, so they try not to touch him. They only put pressure on them psychologically: they can, for example, shorten the allotted time for a short visit, simply because one of the prison staff needs to go out to eat.
“Short dates should last up to four hours. We had cases when they lasted 30-40 minutes. For other convicts - generally for 15 minutes. Now the situation is getting better, but this week dad and sister came to Yegor. They were given only an hour to talk, they didn’t even have time to finish,” says Dasha.
Another element of psychological pressure, she considers the constantly arising difficulties with the transfer of books. Recently, Yegor's father brought Yevgeny Petrov and Ilya Ilf to the colony "One-story America", "Long live the ficus!" George Orwell and Climbing the Mountains. Life Lessons from My Grandfather, Nelson Mandela" by Ndaba Mandela. Egor was informed that the books were not accepted and they were returned to the person who sent them. Dasha says that no one received the books back.
Prior to this, the colony twice refused to accept the book "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" by Yuval Noah Harari. They accepted it for the third time, but when Dasha took the book from Yegor, she realized that 10-15 pages had been torn out at the end. She is sure that there were links to sources in English. Then they refused to accept the book by Oleg Voskoboinikov “The Middle Ages Close-up”. They referred to the fact that the book contains scenes of violence. “In general, Yegor is not as bad as other convicts, but neither he nor I want to put up with what is happening to him,” says Dasha.
In addition to Yegor Lesnykh, five defendants in the "Moscow case" still remain in the colony: Sergei Surovtsev , Eduard Malyshevsky , Maxim Martintsov , Kirill Zhukov and Vladislav Sinitsa .