The relatives of prisoners in Omsk Penal Colony-2, from Ingushetia and the occupied Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, have appealed to the editorial staff of the Free Speech (Svoboda Slova) website with a call for help.

The prisoners themselves, as well as their relatives, are afraid to spread this message. They are afraid for their lives, and also simply do not have the opportunity to inform the official Russian instances about this.

The messages about torture and mockery were made by the prisoners themselves. The editorial staff has the audio recording of this message from the prisoners. After speaking about the torture, the prisoners are not in touch anymore. Their location is unknown.

APPEAL

We, the prisoners of Omsk penal colony 2 (PC-2) and the other colonies of the Omsk region, call for help! Things that are happening here include: daily torture, beating and mockery, to which the people from Chechnya and Ingushetia undergo from the side of the administration and the guards of the colony, are beyond the borders of human understanding.

We are not simply tortured; it is beyond human strength to even tell of the things which they do to us. Besides the “ordinary” beating within an inch of their life and torture, like breaking bones and ribs, also torture in the form of drowning, smothering with a gas mask and torture by electrical currents. Our bodies are cut, there are the cases of a screwdriver being stuck into the patella, nails being torn off, being undressed and having the dogs set on us and being forced to cross ourselves, an insult to our religious feelings. In short, these monsters with perverted minds are torturing us.

Selectively, the males undergo public rape, especially those who try to speak about their rights, to morally suppress the other prisoners. Not being able to sustain this, many of us opened our veins, disemboweled ourselves, to free ourselves from torture and mockery somehow. The injuries, caused during the torture, and also the cases of death of the prisoners due to torture, are being formalized by the administration of the colony as the suicides and suicide attempts.

If a prisoner is brought to the state within an inch of his life, to avoid the possible responsibility in the case of his death, he is carried to some other colony, in order to not increase the death statistics in the given colony. As far as we know, this sadistic torture and mockery are both hidden from the colony administration, or happen with their knowledge and no intervention.

We are deprived of any possibility to report the information about these happenings to any officials or media.

We regard this as a miracle to be able to transmit this desperate cry for help to the community.

We realize that after propagation of this message, our lives will be in danger. But we have not any more strength to suffer such inhumane mockery and torture.

Help us!

We ask you to regard this message as an official appeal to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia, Federal Service of the Punishment Execution of Russia, and the administrations of the Chechen Republic and Republic of Ingushetia.

Also, we ask the human rights organizations Memorial, Amnesty International and others to whom our fate is not indifferent, to help us to pass this message to officials and the community. Stop this lawlessness!

We have not specified our names in this appeal because to do so would be signing our death warrants.

In the case that there is a reaction to our appeal from the officials and the community and a commission is be created to investigate the criminal acts described above, we are ready to risk our lives and publicize our names to help the investigation.

November 2010

The prisoners of Omsk penal colony 2 (PC-2), born in Chechen Republic and Republic of Ingushetia

*Text was translated by Aminat for Waynakh Online and edited by Michael Capobianco