Conditions in Belarusian prisons. Who controls them now? | Belarus: a view from Europe – special project DW | DW
Public Monitoring Commissions (POCs) in Belarus monitor the activities of prisons and colonies. In their work, according to the regulations, from three to eleven people take part, but the selection in them is not transparent. As a rule, representatives of women’s or entrepreneurial public associations controlled by the authorities get there.
Since July 2017, the chairman of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC) Oleg Gulak has been a member of the republican POC under the Ministry of Justice of Belarus. The Supreme Court liquidated this organization on October 1, and four days later the last human rights structures of the country were deprived of registration. Now there is no one to monitor the observance of the rights of convicts?
There will be no more human rights defenders in the PMC
In addition to the republican POC, public commissions under the administration of justice exist in every regional center of Belarus. Boris Bukhel.
Boris Bukhel, Member of the Board of the Mogilev Human Rights Center (July 2021)
“This is the end of history” – this is how Oleg Gulak sees his future fate in the republican POC after the exclusion of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee. If he disappears, he explains, the member of the commission is also annulled. How it will be formalized is a technical question.
In 2017, he continues, the trend was that the system of execution of sentences promised to develop, and human rights defenders were called upon to help this. His inclusion in the POC just became the corresponding signal. Much has been done, says Oleg Gulak, but PMCs have not become a significant instrument of control: “And now they will be even less significant.”
Boris Bukhel, in turn, notes that the value of the POC was in visiting the correctional institutions of the Department for the Execution of Punishments (DIN) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus. Human rights activists were able to get inside the colonies. In addition, the Ministry of Justice regularly, twice a year, held conferences and round meetings with the leadership of the DIN – that is, it was possible to meet face to face with representatives of this department and argue with them.
“Wedding Generals” from POC?
On the other hand, Buchel continues, it quickly became clear. The human rights activist even had to publicly declare at one of the conferences that the POC members are “wedding generals.”
Oleg Gulak, Chairman of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee (photo of 2019)
A scandal broke out, recalls Boris Bukhel, and the Ministry of Justice promised a new provision on the commissions, and it was about expanding their powers. But then at first the coronavirus closed the entrance to the colonies due to quarantine, and later the political crisis put an end to the idea.
Today the Mogilev MPC is in limbo. The Justice Department demanded all information about the organization, and during the February mass searches of human rights defenders, some of the documents were seized by the security forces. Boris Bukhel looks into the future without optimism: “Maybe the same as with Oleg Gulak.”
Political crisis and prison bosses
“The current political crisis hit the IDU hard and did not need it at all,” says Vasily Zavadsky, ex-head of the medical service of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus (in 2008-2010). He notes that the leadership of the department’s plan has gradually followed the path of humanizing the penitentiary system, especially in terms of public utilities.
For example, a year ago, not only telephone, but also video calls via Skype or Viber were allowed in the Belarusian colonies. The weight of the regime transmissions, the number is regulated by the Criminal Executive Code, was increased from 30 to 50 kg.
Former head of the medical service of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus Vasily Zavadsky
Online shops have been launched in some colonies this year. If earlier relatives brought parcels to prisoners to the colony, where food was cut under control, now 50 kg of goods can be collected in a virtual basket and paid on the website. Within three days, everything will be delivered to the prisoner without breaking the packaging, which ensures long-term storage.
And when it comes to the repressions of August 2020, the Department of Corrections has nothing to do with the IVS in Akrestsin Street. DIN behaved decently until the policemen showed up.
Countering human rights defenders
Today Vasily Zavadsky is still the TimeAct business and information institution, created specifically to protect prisoners. But the decision to settle it has already been taken by the authorities, he states, the proceedings with the tax inspection.
Human rights activist Viktoria Fedorova
You can try to get into the POC for years and everything is unsuccessful – this is the experience of her colleagues by the already closed authorities of the organization “Legal Initiative” Belarusian Fedorova. In March last year, she herself sent applications to the republican and six regional POCs.
In her resume – a graduate of the Faculty of International Organizations of the Belarusian State University, for five years she was engaged in the protection of prisoners’ rights, participated in the preparation of thematic reports for international organizations. But everyone refused, notes Viktoria Fedorova, and gives a harsh description of the penitentiary system: “Its punitive nature has not changed, and all improvements must be assessed as cosmetic.”
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