A Kemerovo human rights activist accused of drug possession spoke about the tortured conditions in the pre-trial detention center

The coordinator of the human rights project “Legal Siberia” Dmitry Kamynin, who is accused of drug possession (Part 2 of Article 228 of the Criminal Code), spoke about the torture conditions in pre-trial detention center No. 1 in Kemerovo. He sent his story to the editors of Taiga.info.

From Kamynin’s story it follows that in the pre-trial detention center there is a basement punishment cell No. 16, into which they place stripped naked prisoners who allegedly violated discipline. In March, the human rights activist himself ended up in this punishment cell after going on a hunger strike due to threats.

Taiga.info partially publishes Dmitry Kamynin’s story about the pre-trial detention center:

“They forcibly tore off all my clothes, down to my underpants. There is no heating in the punishment cell, it’s as cold as a freezer, and the conditions are unsanitary,” says the human rights activist. “I spent almost three days in this punishment cell, although they don’t keep me in it for more than a day or even [several] hours—I broke all the records for being in it.

The first night I slept standing up, since sleeping on an icy floor is very difficult, and also completely naked. The second night I no longer had the strength to sleep standing: I had been on a hunger strike for almost two months. My health condition deteriorated sharply, my body was practically exhausted to the point of death, and I had very little time to live.

On the third day of my stay here, I was taken to the medical unit of the institution. To all my visits to doctors and complaints about a sharp deterioration in my health, they simply answered that I must suffer.”

Earlier, Taiga.info was told about a similar punishment cell by the aunt of Kamynin’s colleague from Siberia Legal, Vladimir Taranenko, who is in a pre-trial detention center on a case of extortion (Article 163 of the Criminal Code). According to the woman, Taranenko was stripped naked and beaten for some “violation of the law.”

Taranenko and Kamynin have been in pre-trial detention center since February 2021. Earlier, Vladimir Taranenko reported about torture in order to gain access to the YouTube channel of a human rights organization, where interviews with former prisoners about the use of torture in correctional institutions were published.

The criminal case of Vladimir Taranenko was recently sent to court for consideration.

• “Legal Siberia” is a human rights project that provides assistance to prisoners. Its authors covered hunger strikes, as well as beatings, torture and other cases of ill-treatment in places of detention. Dmitry Kamynin and Vladimir Taranenko, who are now in pre-trial detention center, talked about similar cases on their YouTube channel .