Press Release, 18.05.2018

Mikhail Amosov, Yabloko MP in the St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly, considers the response from the Leningrad region Public Prosecutor’s Office on his appeal on the issue of possible violations of the rights of convicts held in the Penal Colony Settlement  No 8 to be formal and unsatisfactory.

According to the parliamentarian, it is absolutely unacceptable that the penal colony-settlement was moved to the centre of St. Petersburg from Borisov Griva settlement which actually resulted in a change of the penal regime for the convicts. Instead of a settlement colony, the convicts found themselves in a very real prison.

Amosov asked the Public Prosecutor of the Leningrad region to provide him with detailed information on the conditions of serving the penal terms in the colony-settlement, as well as specific facts of the revealed infringements of the logistical and technical provisions for the convicts and report on the measures taken for the elimination of such violations.

Earlier, Mikhail Amosov sent appeals to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of St. Petersburg with a request to conduct a check in the colony-settlement No 8. Relatives of the prisoners reported that the conditions in the penal institution did not correspond to the status of the penal insitution. In particular, according to the relatives, convicts were restricted in their movement within the territory of the correctional facility and the adjacent settlement; the temperature regime was not maintained in the buildings where convicts live, prisoners were deprived of the opportunity to eat normally, they were also denied long visits by their relatives.

The reply from the Public Prosecutor’s Office ran that the inspection revealed violations of the material and welfare provision of the convicts, but no stated no definite facts.

It should be noted that the Colony Settlement No 8 of the Administration of the Federal Service for the Execution of Punishment in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region was transferred from the village of Borisova Griva, Leningrad Region, to the territory of the former Detention Unit No 1 “Kresti” in St. Petersburg in January 2018.