Brittney Griner faces bleak life in Russian penal colony

Reuters  — 

Tedious handbook work, poor hygiene and lack of entry to medical care – such are the circumstances awaiting US basketball star Brittney Griner in a Russian penal colony after she misplaced her enchantment final week towards a nine-year drug sentence.

It’s a world acquainted to Maria Alyokhina, a member of feminist artwork ensemble Pussy Riot who spent almost two years as an inmate for her half in a 2012 punk protest in a Moscow cathedral towards President Vladimir Putin.

The very first thing to grasp, Alyokhina mentioned in an interview, is that a penal colony is not any strange jail.

“This isn't a constructing with cells. This appears to be like like a wierd village, like a Gulag labor camp,” she mentioned, referring to the huge penal community established by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to isolate and crush inmates.

“It really is a labor camp as a result of by legislation all of the prisoners ought to work. The fairly cynical factor about this work is that prisoners normally sew police uniforms and uniforms for the Russian military, nearly with out wage.”

The colony was divided between a manufacturing unit space the place the prisoners made clothes and gloves and a “residing zone” the place Alyokhina mentioned 80 girls lived in a single room with simply three bogs and no sizzling water.

Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medallist, might quickly be transferred to a colony within the absence of an additional enchantment or an settlement between Washington and Moscow to swap her for a Russian arms vendor jailed in the US – a risk that was floated months in the past however has but to materialize.

In a Pussy Riot present that has toured the world and is now enjoying in Britain, Alyokhina relives the reminiscences of her time as an inmate – snowy jail yards, plank-like beds, lengthy spells in solitary confinement and punishment for minor infringements reminiscent of an unbuttoned coat or poorly hooked up nametag.

She was consistently being videoed by jail guards “as a result of I'm a ‘well-known provocateur’,” she added.

Russia’s jail service didn't reply to a request for remark for this text.

A more moderen penal colony detainee, Yelena, described the same regime to that skilled by Alyokhina a decade in the past.

Yelena, 34, served eight years in a Siberian colony after being convicted for possession of medicine.

She mentioned she was paid about 1,000 roubles ($16) a month for toiling 10-12 hours a day in a stitching workshop.

“Women with a powerful, athletic construct are sometimes given a lot heavier jobs. For instance, they load sacks of flour for a jail bakery or unload mountains of coal,” she mentioned.

Prisoners might face punishment for inexplicable “offenses” reminiscent of putting a wristwatch on a bedside desk.

The last word sanction was solitary confinement, referred to as “the Vatican.”

“Simply because the Vatican is a state inside a state, solitary confinement is a jail inside a jail,” Yelena mentioned.

A gynecologist paid a month-to-month go to to her colony, the place greater than 800 girls have been imprisoned.

“You do the mathematics, what are the possibilities of being the one to get via to a physician? Virtually zero,” she mentioned.

For a foreigner with little or no Russian, it’s tougher to navigate the system and take care of the isolation.

The brother of Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine serving 16 years in a Russian penal colony on espionage expenses that he denies, mentioned he's granted a 15-minute cellphone name every day to his dad and mom, can't name different relations or mates, and has no entry to e mail or the web.

David Whelan mentioned his brother should work no less than eight hours a day, six days per week, on menial duties like making buttonholes, which has induced him repetitive pressure damage.

Inmates sleep in barrack-like buildings and entry to many requirements, together with medication, is dependent upon paying bribes to jail guards, he mentioned.

Circumstances can rely closely on the whims of guards, the warden or elder inmates.

Paul appears to make use of his army coaching “to get via simply each day, to determine what battles to battle and which battles to not battle,” David Whelan mentioned.

“His cellphone calls even to our dad and mom are recorded. His letters have been all translated earlier than they went out. So you realize that the whole lot you do is being watched and you actually don't have any sense of individuality.”

Alyokhina mentioned receiving playing cards and letters from the skin world supplied a uncommon ray of hope, and she or he urged individuals to assist Griner that method.

She mentioned they need to use a machine translation and ship the textual content in each English and Russian to get it extra simply previous the jail censor.

“Don't go away somebody alone with this method,” she mentioned. “It’s completely inhuman, it’s a Gulag, and if you really feel your self alone there, it’s a lot simpler to surrender.”