The video, filmed by a man arrested at a protest in Moscow, shows a group of people trapped in a police minibus. One of them says in the recording that they had been detained there for nine hours, and some were forced to stand because of overcrowding and without access to food, water or toilets.
Another video taken in a dirty cell for eight inmates shows 28 men crammed inside waiting for transfer, with no mattresses on the beds and a filthy toilet that looks like a latrine.
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Detainees are recounting their miserable experiences while Moscow prisons were overwhelmed after mass protests in support of opposition leader Alexei Navalny this week. They described long waits to be processed in the legal system and overcrowded conditions with few precautions against the coronavirus.
“We were detained on January 31 during a peaceful protest and asked for help and public attention for the inhuman conditions in which we are forced to live,” defends the man in the police minibus video. The video was first posted on Tuesday to the Telegram messaging app by Sasha Fishman, who received it from his friend Dmitry Yepishin, one of those detained in the vehicle.
More than 11,000 protesters were detained across Russia at the pro-Navalny rallies on two consecutive weekends last month and in Moscow and St. Petersburg on Tuesday after he was sentenced by the court to serve nearly three years in prison.
Some of the protesters were beaten on the streets by riot police or subjected to other abuses. Human rights defenders said many police districts refused to allow lawyers to enter to help detainees, citing what is known as the “Fortaleza” protocol.
“Many violations (of detainees’ rights) that we saw before. … But probably the scale we see now is much more frightening than before,” said Alexandra Bayeva, coordinator of the rights group OVD-Info that monitors political prisons, to the Associated Press.
Although it accounted for less than half of the arrests, the capital’s prisons quickly filled when dozens of people were convicted by the courts. Many received misdemeanor charges that resulted in prison sentences of five to 15 days.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged on Thursday that there are more detainees than detention centers in Moscow could process quickly, but he blamed the protesters themselves for the problem.
“This situation was not caused by law enforcement; it was caused by participants in unauthorized demonstrations,” said Peskov.
This photo released by Philipp Kyznetsov on his Instagram account philipp_kuznetsov, shows him, on the right, posing for a selfie with a group of people detained inside the police bus in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, January 27, 2021. Filipp Kuznetsov was arrested on January 23, 2021 and sentenced to 10 days in prison on January 25, 2021, but he did not enter his cell until two nights later. Kuznetsov told the AP that he spent the first night in a police station and the second in a police bus waiting for the detention center to accommodate him and about 20 other people. (philipp_kuznetsov via AP)
Marina Litvinovich, a member of the Public Monitoring Commission that observes the treatment of prisoners and detainees, said that Moscow simply could not cope with such an influx of protesters convicted of misdemeanor offenses and that they need to be arrested for several days.
“The first crisis occurred when police vans and buses (with detainees) were anxiously circling Moscow and the prisons would not let them in. They did not know where to place people,” Litvinovich told the AP. “Some people were taken back to the police stations. Some stayed in police vans all day near the prisons. Some were lucky and received food and were taken to the bathroom. Some were unlucky and had to pee in the bottle. “
Filipp Kuznetsov was arrested on 23 January and sentenced to 10 days in prison, but did not enter his cell until 27 January. Kuznetsov told the AP that he spent the first night in a cell and the second in a police bus waiting for the detention center to accommodate him and about a dozen others.
“It was a very unpleasant situation,” said Kuznetsov.
Gleb Maryasov, also detained on January 23, had to wait for a bed in a cell to be free for 25 hours, spending that time in the back seat of a police car, said his lawyer, Dmitry Zakhvatov.
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While the prisons in Moscow were filling up, authorities were transferring people to detention centers outside the capital. Police bus lines have been reported in Sakharovo, 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of the city. On Thursday night, Sakharovo’s facilities housed more than 800 people, about 90% of whom were detained during the protests, Litvinovich told Russian news agency Tass.
Dmitry Shelomentsev was among those who had to wait several hours on a police bus in Sakharavo before being taken inside. Sentenced to 15 days in prison for participating in Tuesday’s protest, Shelomentsev sent the AP the short video on Thursday morning from the cell where 28 people were being held, awaiting transfer.
There were not enough beds, which lacked mattresses, and the police left two five-liter bottles of water to share among all the inmates, without cups, he said. In the video, some of the inmates were leaning against the small walls that surrounded the dirty bathroom.
After nearly five hours in the cell, Shelomentsev said he was transferred to a minor – four people.
Moscow police said on Thursday that those awaiting transfer were given cells according to regulations and that there was enough space at Sakharovo’s premises.
When asked if there were any precautions related to viruses in the detention center, Shelomentsev wrote: “What measures (coronavirus) if there were 28 of us in a cell and … people drank from the same jar?”
Other protesters detained in Sakharovo described riding the police buses all night before being taken to their cells, according to their friends and partners.
Receiving packages of food and other basic items required waiting hours outside the detention facilities in sub-zero temperatures. Anna Chumakova, who spent the whole day in line on Thursday, said about 150 people lined up at noon, but only less than 40 were able to pick up their packages until sunset.
Lawyer Zakhvatov also pointed out reports that dozens of people were sleeping on the floor of police stations. This “highlights the absurdity” of prosecuting some Navalny allies for inciting violations of coronavirus protocols by organizing street protests, he said.
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In addition to Sakharovo, there were at least four more detention centers outside Moscow where the demonstrators were taken, according to Litvinovich of the Public Monitoring Commission. Each facility had a capacity for about 30 people and all were full.
She called the situation “absolutely unprecedented”.
“It is the beginning, it is not just the first time. It is the beginning of the process when these prisons will always be full. I think people will continue to protest and the authorities will remain brutal, ”she said.