"The reports about mass abuse that are being circulated by the For Human Rights national public movement as well as by the human rights associations Committee for the Protection of Prisoners and Urals Amnesty have nothing to do with the truth," the Sentence Enforcement Unit says in a press release.
"The leaders of these so-called human rights organizations displayed legal incompetence by spreading false information, in violation of effective legislation and unaware of the situation on the ground," it points out.
"On April 21, Prison 1 of the town of Verkhneuralsk, in the Chelyabinsk region, where repeat perpetrators of major crimes serve their terms, several inmates attempted to destabilize the situation in the penitentiary by defying the administration's legal demands," the unit reports. A search was undertaken to ensure security of the staff and the prisoners, sixteen inmates refused to go out of their cells and to let their personal effects be checked. Since their attempts to verbally persuade the rebels produced no effect, personnel had to use rubber sticks and handcuffs, an option envisaged by the law in the event of a breach of the prison rules.
According to the Justice Ministry, the convicts against whom rubber sticks and handcuffs were used subsequently underwent medical examination, and none of them was found in need of medical aid.
Some of the inmates then went on a hunger protest, only to end it April 26. Now, the situation in the Verkhneuralsk penitentiary has stabilized again.
In a separate incident, two inmates injured themselves with razor blades in Penitentiary 32 of the town of Zima on April 24; thirty-nine others followed suit, the Sentence Enforcement Unit says in the press release. All of them were then subjected to medical examination, but none was hospitalized. On April 25, sixty-eight incarcerated persons refused to take food. These did not advance any demands and gave up two days on. the Sentence Enforcement Unit reports.
