Protest in cell 15. Iryna Slaunikava and other detainees on hunger strike in detention center

From mid-Octo­ber, the admin­is­tra­tion of the facil­i­ty start­ed pres­sur­ing women in cell 15: they were stripped of all their out­wear that the detainees could use as mat­tress­es. The clothes that women man­aged to pick up were tak­en away and added to the list of arrest­ed items. Every­thing else was thrown away.

From Novem­ber 1, the women were not giv­en toi­let paper. There­fore, they went on a hunger strike with the demands to rein­tro­duce walks and show­ers, turn off the lights in the cells at night, give out all the nec­es­sary things accord­ing to the norms, return all belong­ings and med­i­cines.

Apart from jour­nal­ist Iry­na Slau­nika­va, polit­i­cal pris­on­er Anas­ta­sia Kru­penich-Kan­drat­sje­va was kept in the cell until yes­ter­day. The for­mer detainees told what was hap­pen­ing in cell 15 of the deten­tion cen­ter.

«I’ll wean you off from writing complaints.» Why they started pressuring women

As human rights activists learned, such a bad reac­tion in the facil­i­ty admin­is­tra­tion was caused by a recent com­plaint about the con­di­tions of deten­tion of one of the for­mer detainees. Dur­ing the «riot», the deputy head of the facil­i­ty stat­ed that the com­plaints that the detainees wrote after their release are not valid. He added that the con­di­tions of deten­tion would wors­en to «wean» them from writ­ing com­plaints. He also promised to make the cell only sev­en degrees warm.

All these weeks, the guards car­ried out an addi­tion­al search in the cell. That applied exclu­sive­ly to cell 15, even though there was anoth­er male “polit­i­cal” cell on the floor.

Dur­ing the search, all the «unnec­es­sary», accord­ing to the admin­is­tra­tion, things were seized: tooth­brush­es, pads, med­i­cines. Accord­ing to the released, warm clothes were also con­fis­cat­ed from men in mid-Octo­ber.

The girls say that the cell itself is very hot and sti­fling. The feed­er was some­times opened three cen­time­ters wide approx­i­mate­ly for an hour and a half. At the end of the month, they stopped open­ing the «feed­er» at all. Accord­ing to guards, «detainees should get some air when food is served.» At the same time, when the feed­er was open at night and it was cold, the guards refused to close it. The for­mer detainees also noticed that the food dis­trib­u­tor had stopped serv­ing white bread, although they had to give it 75 grams twice a day.

Even med­ical masks which women used as hair bands were col­lect­ed.

The detainees have to beg for soap and toilet paper

Pre­vi­ous­ly, the detainees who were detained at home could bring per­son­al hygiene items, tow­els, and oth­er nec­es­sary things into the cell. Now the «new­com­ers» come to the cell emp­ty-hand­ed — all this is tak­en away in the deten­tion cen­ter. So women still stay in deten­tion with­out sham­poo and tooth­paste. Tooth­brush­es, linen, and tow­els remain after the for­mer detainees. Women have to wash their hair with local soap — half a piece for ten detainees. The detainees have to beg for it and toi­let paper. Some­times they are not giv­en for two or three days in a row. At the request to get toi­let paper, the guards offered to use T‑shirts instead.

«It’s no health resort here.» Four brushes, three bottles of water, and seven pads for 10 women

All med­i­cines were tak­en from the wom­en’s bed­side tables: cold pills, nasal and throat sprays, antivi­ral pow­ders, Smec­ta. At the same time, they said: «It’s no health resort here to get treat­ed.»

Bot­tles of water that the detainees used for wash­ing, warm­ing up, and drink­ing were thrown away because, accord­ing to the admin­is­tra­tion, there were too many of them.

The para­medic usu­al­ly dis­pens­es med­ica­tion to detainees dur­ing the morn­ing rounds. The stock of tablets is small, and there are no antivi­rals at all, only parac­eta­mol, ambrox­ol, anal­gin, vali­dol, and aller­gy reme­dies. In addi­tion, they don’t allow to store those drugs that may be need­ed quick­ly in the cell, and it takes a lot of time to get one through the para­medic.

The women note that the detainees have lice in the cell. They have been appear­ing since Sep­tem­ber when three home­less women were put in a cell at once. As of Novem­ber 3, there were only four tooth­brush­es, three water bot­tles, and about sev­en pads left in the cell for ten women.