How to write letters to political prisoners?

FAQ about a safe and very important form of activism

Author: Zhenya Shamina
Editor: Rivka Rivkina
Illustrations: Katya Litvinova

Publication: June 30, 2022

Imagine being placed in a place where you can no longer choose your social circle, places to go, most books, news, Internet content. Even in fantasy, this feeling of isolation is quite alarming, but it is even more alarming to return after many months or years to an environment that has no longer been familiar. Texting is one of the few ways to overcome isolation. We asked activist Zhenya Shamina to answer frequently asked questions about letters to political prisoners.

How to choose a recipient?

How to send a letter?

I have never written to prison

I have never written a letter

Is it okay to share sad news?

What if I can’t keep up correspondence all the time?

What can't you write about because of censorship?

I'm afraid that the letters will attract the attention of the authorities to me

I'm under 18 years old. Can I write a letter?

My name is Zhenia. I am engaged in human rights activism, organize events in the horizontal space “ Only Ourselves ” in Moscow, and also run the telegram channel “ Shamina Writes ”, based on my experience of correspondence with political prisoners. I have been actively corresponding with people convicted on fabricated cases for almost 4 years.

My first correspondence happened 3 years ago with a close friend who was placed in a pre-trial detention center for a post on the Internet - due to suspicion of justifying terrorism. Then I decided to write to strangers too.

Zhenya Shamina

human rights activist and member of the collective “Only Ourselves”

How to choose a recipient?

Political prisoners are completely different people. Among them are both civil and political activists persecuted for their activities, as well as people who find themselves in captivity for belonging to a certain faith or simply for reposting on a social network. Some political prisoners end up in pre-trial detention centers and colonies on fabricated criminal cases. If you don't know who to write to, you can turn to one of the thematic human rights projects that talk about political prisoners.

1. List on the RosUznik website. The site has built-in convenient sorting, including by name of criminal cases. There are also examples of letters that you can use as a guide if you are writing for the first time.

2. List of political prisoners on the Memorial website. Contains detailed prisoner files from which writing topics can be drawn.

3. Telegram bot @svobot_bot , which sends the name and address of a political prisoner selected at random. There are sections: “sit for politics”, “sit for religion”, “sit for peace” and “birthday people”.

4. List of political prisoners in Belarus on the website of the human rights center “Viasna”. This is the most complete list, which contains all the dossiers, addresses and even a map of places of detention indicating the number of repressed people who are there at the moment. You can write through the “ Letters in a Box ” project.

You shouldn’t write to a large number of people at once; any communication takes a lot of effort, and letters are an unusual format for modern people, even more so. If you find it comfortable and interesting to maintain correspondence with one or two people, you can select more recipients. The exception is postcards, but they are more appropriate before holidays or upcoming trials to simply express your support without entering into dialogue.

How to send a letter?

1. FSIN letter . An email costs 55 rubles for one sheet and the same for a response form, which will be scanned to your email. For another 35 rubles you can attach an image, but it will be printed on a regular black and white printer. This is the fastest delivery method - due to strict reporting, the censor often processes the letter quickly. You can only attach one response form, but it is possible to send blank letters, paying only for the response, in which case the prisoner will be given several sheets. It wouldn’t hurt to get a FSIN card to save on fees when paying.

2. " RosUznik ". An email can be sent via RosUznik for free, but delivery and response times are difficult to estimate. “RosUznik” is a volunteer project that exists only on voluntary donations , which should be made on the site based on personal resources in order to maintain the possibility of free correspondence for everyone.

3. Russian Post . A simple letter costs from 25 rubles depending on weight; a registered letter will be more expensive, but it can be tracked using a track number. The institution is obliged to notify about the delivery of a letter or refusal at the censorship stage, but no one does this, it is also impossible to control the timing of censorship, but this is the best way if you want to attach color drawings or photographs in good quality. For some pre-trial detention centers and colonies, this is the only way to deliver letters.

4. “ Letters in a box .” If you want to write to Belarusian political prisoners, you can do this through the project website. Like “RosUznik”, the project is completely volunteer, and it’s also great to support it with donations from time to time .

I never wrote to prison. I don’t know what to write to make it interesting

When your own life seems like a routine, you can again try to imagine yourself in the place of a prisoner who has access to almost nothing that you have.

A story about a walk describing the surrounding area would be a good enough topic for writing, as would a story about your studies, pets, or hobbies.

This will allow your recipient not to forget the world beyond the barbed wire, and you will better understand the value of your everyday life. When answering letters, I sometimes look around my room or pay attention to the view outside the window and feel delighted, even if I feel very bad.

I've never written a letter and I don't quite understand how to do it.

There is no universal writing structure; you can write as you wish. If the first letter is difficult, you can do this:

1. Open a note on your phone or a regular notepad.

2. Start the letter with a greeting, introduce yourself, tell us a little about yourself, your work or studies, hobbies, and offer to start a correspondence.

3. Ask the recipient about his or her interests and hobbies, you can later send articles or news on these topics.

4. Set aside your letter and give yourself a few days to add any stories, jokes, questions, or reflections.

5. When you decide that the letter is ready, you can send it!

Is it okay to share sad news? How about talking about travel?

Impressions from travel can be an important addition to the picture of will in a person’s head, they allow you not to forget it, and can become the key to interesting topics for correspondence. It is not at all necessary to write only on positive topics; everything that happens outside the prison walls is important.

Correspondence with a political prisoner is still an ordinary dialogue with a person, albeit in an unusual format, so you can always clarify whether it is comfortable to touch on a particular topic. You will never guess what a stranger is interested in, so just try to write about what interests you. Any dialogue can lead to something interesting.

, a defendant in the “Moscow case” For example, here is a fragment from a letter to Kirill Zhukov (he is now free), published on the RosUznik website:

I saw a dolphin a meter away from me in the open sea, I thought I would die from surprise, but then nothing happened, I decided to treat him like a big dog... I had a Newfoundland as a child. The fear passed, but the dolphins did not swim so close. The juniper forest in Bolshoy Utrish was still burning, it was extinguished in 3-5 days, but people with tents were evacuated from there, and I just arrived there, to a tiny hotel... And there was no one there. You could walk along the mountain and not meet anyone.

Pavel Krisevich. “Dead Butyrka: Citizen Dog” (sheet, colored pencils, mascara, toothpaste)

What if I can’t keep up correspondence all the time? This can upset a person.

In addition to choosing the subject of letters, I and some other people are often worried about a possible feeling of guilt for interrupted correspondence or for the possibility of suddenly interrupting it due to burnout or lack of energy.

Everyone understands perfectly well that no person is obliged to provide support, especially if for some reason they do not have such an opportunity. Yes, fatigue or burnout are also good reasons. But the opportunity to receive this support again, even after some time has passed, is much more important than potential offense, which most often you will not even encounter.

You do not have to explain the reasons for the break if you do not want to do so. If you want, you can simply describe the time that passed and the feelings from this pause.

We are all very similar and understand each other, regardless of which side of the barbed wire fence we are on at the moment. It’s just that there are more pleasant emotions from letters on the other side.

This is what political prisoner artist from Khabarovsk Maxim Smolnikov wrote to me (he is now free, but under a ban on certain actions, the case is still ongoing):

Hello, Zhenya! I'm glad to receive a letter from you again, don't worry about unwritten letters. It happens like this: you set yourself an ambitious task, don’t complete it for a bunch of reasons (sometimes you don’t even start), but then with all your energy you begin to reproach and blame yourself. In this case, I tell myself that apparently censure was my task :)

What can't you write about because of censorship? What is forbidden to write?

When a letter arrives at a pre-trial detention center or colony, it is first processed by a censor. By law, he has 3 working days to do this, but the time frame may increase on holidays, in the event of illness of the censor, or even due to a printer malfunction.

There are practically no official censorship rules. In letters you cannot share other people’s contact and personal information, or discuss the details of the case. This really shouldn’t be done so as not to harm your recipient. All other censorship rules are invented by employees of institutions, sometimes spontaneously.

In the spring of this year, the pre-trial detention center in the city of Kansk received an email from my friend to the politically repressed teenager Denis Mikhailenko . Here is his verbatim text, only the name has been changed.

Hi Denis! My name is Yana, I’m a bit of a biologist and I love hedgehogs and buckwheat tea. It smells and tastes just like caramel.
I am writing to you and hope to encourage you, I hope everything is as good as possible for you there! Do you have the opportunity to exercise there at least a little? I am a former athlete, one might say! I ran half marathons when I was involved in athletics. Even minimal activity gives you strength. I also really enjoy hiking and camping. A couple of years ago I went to the mountains, there were such landscapes and air! I saw a very cute fox. I like it when you’re with a tent, the wood is crackling in the fire... It’s very soulful! I’ll be waiting for your answer, I really want to know what you’re interested in! Take care of yourself!

This funny and naive letter to a 15-year-old young man in prison did not pass censorship, like all other letters from different people for almost 2 months. It can be argued that this was deliberate pressure on the defendant. After a number of complaints, some letters began to be missed.

Some correspondence shows that many prisoners not only do not avoid discussing their imprisonment, but also like to joke on this topic, such as the person involved in the “Network” case, Yuli Boyarshinov .

From the correspondence of Yuli Boyarshinov, a defendant in the “Network” case, and his girlfriend

From the correspondence of Yuli Boyarshinov, a defendant in the Network case, and his girlfriend.

It happens that very strict censorship is used on specific prisoners in order to put pressure on them. To prevent this, censorship of a letter can be appealed in the electronic reception room of the Federal Penitentiary Service. To do this, you do not need to have special knowledge; the telegram bot of human rights activist Roman Kiselyov can help you, where you can ask any question and receive a ready-made complaint form. The more attention to the situation, the faster the “blockade” will be broken.

I am afraid that the letters will attract the attention of the authorities to me.

There is no need to be afraid that your personal information may somehow be used for persecution. Censors almost never transmit the texts of letters to the Investigative Committee; this is unnecessary work for them. Unless you are writing about your own crime (but I definitely don’t recommend doing that). Or you are not on the federal wanted list.

I have only come across one case where a woman was called in for a conversation because of letters. These were letters to foreign political prisoners, which became simply a pretext for a conversation about her other activities, but in this case there were no consequences.

On the other hand, the use of pseudonyms is not prohibited, and anonymity can be maintained ◻️ by sending a letter through electronic resources.

I'm under 18 years old. Can I write a letter?

By law there are no age restrictions. Parents of minor letter writers are also usually not informed about the correspondence, but if you are worried, you don’t have to mention age.

Thank you for reading to the end.

Now write your first letter to a political prisoner or political prisoner.

We will be glad if you tell us about your correspondence experience - we will be waiting for your messages in the telegram bot @doxajournalbot with the hashtag #letters .

But if something goes wrong at Russian Post, you won’t be able to get a response.