Smolenskaya Oblast, Russia – 60 prisoners started a hunger strike; some slashed their veins to protest the Speznaz tortures. Russian Federal Bureau of Executions and Speznaz of Ministry of Jurisdiction are responsible for the tortures.

Oksana Dzera, representative of the Human Rights Group of Russia, said that the protests started a week ago, when Chief of the Regional Executions Bureau office, Colonel Igor Konovalov, came to the colony 100/1, located 60 miles outside of Smolensk. He asked for the names of those who had torched a car of one of his co-workers in Smolensk; the prisoners replied that they didn’t know the names. That’s when the colonel ordered Speznaz troops to come to the colony and beat the answers out of the prisoners.

“The prisoners were beaten in the prison’s hallways for three days; they are all just blue colored now, and some of them haven’t received food for seven days” – says Oksana. All the abused prisoners are between 23 and 25 years of age.

Now the prisoners are protesting; they are satisfied with the prison’s conditions, they aren’t asking for anything, all they want is a criminal investigation against their assailants. The protests started this Thursday after the Speznaz troops came back to inflict more sadistic beatings.

The Local Bureau of Executions intially dismissed the allegations, but later on, when representatives of human rights groups demanded admission to the colony, officials admitted that “there are problems in this particular prison”. Official reports from the prison say that “some prisoners refuse to accept meals” and “injure themselves by cutting their wrists”.

It takes time for human rights organization to get to another city and get clearance to visit the prisoners, and Oksana is worried that by the time they get there, there will be no injured cell-mates. It’s happened before, she says, they take them and move them to another location to hide the evidence.