‍Crimean political prisoners in Russian prisons and colonies find themselves in inhumane conditions due to the complete lack of medical care. This is regularly reported by their relatives. The same problem is discussed on international human rights platforms. But are human rights activists and the international community able to make a difference?

In March 2022, Rustem Gugurik, a resident of occupied Novooleksiyivka, was detained at the entrance to Crimea, where he was trying to take his family after Russian troops appeared in his town. The 51-year-old man was later accused of being a member of the Noman Chelebidzhikhan Crimean Tatar volunteer battalion and imprisoned for eight and a half years. After a year and a half in the Russian colony, the political prisoner lost his hearing and suffered from shortness of breath even after minimal physical effort.

Before his arrest, Rustem Gugurik had been taking medications to support his heart function regularly. However, one of the peculiarities of Russian prisons is that no medicines from the ‘other’ life are available to prisoners until they are prescribed by a prison doctor. In a situation like Gugurik's, when the qualifications of an ordinary doctor are not enough, one has to wait until the nearest clinic sends a narrow-profile specialist, such as a cardiologist, to the colony. But most often, these specialists do not need a visual examination, they need hardware tests: holter, ECG, and coronary angiography. To organise an examination, you need to allocate a convoy and transport, and this requires a lot of organisational effort, which prisoners do not do.

Therefore, in a year and a half, Rustem Gugurik was given only one ultrasound examination and a short course of sedative therapy. Despite the obvious deterioration of his health, he was not prescribed any other examinations or appropriate treatment. And this is not an exception, but a common story. Two similar cases have already ended tragically.

Last year, Konstantin Shiring, convicted on falsified espionage charges, died in a colony in the Orenburg region. Earlier, the Crimean had repeatedly complained of heart problems and a complete lack of treatment. During the trial, he fainted and was revived by paramedics. Just three days after his death, another fatality was reported. Сemil Gafarov, accused of terrorist activities, stopped walking after a heart attack, but he never received adequate medical care - he died in a Russian detention centre, with only Validol as his only medicine.

At the beginning of this year, the list of those who died was almost joined by another political prisoner, Tofik Abdulgaziyev, who was taken to the prison hospital in critical condition in March. For a long time, he was in the intensive care unit. According to his wife, a man who was quite healthy before his arrest, four years later found himself on the verge of death, having contracted eight different diseases, including tuberculosis, in the detention centre and colony.

Tuberculosis is quite common in Russian prisons. For example, a week ago, the Telegram channel ‘Tribunal. Crimean Episode’ reported that Dmitry Shaynoga, abducted by Russian special services in Zaporizhzhia region, had been infected with tuberculosis during his two years in Crimean detention centres and is now seriously ill.

At the same time, the Crimean political prisoners cannot expect to be released due to their illnesses. The Russian courts systematically ignore the entire list of diseases that can lead to the release of a defendant from prison. A striking example is the case of Amet Suleymanov, who, despite the need for urgent replacement of his heart valve, remains behind bars. The defence provided the court with all the documents confirming the man's right to be released on medical grounds, but the court ignored these arguments.

The lack of medical care for political prisoners in Russian prisons has long been a source of serious concern for human rights activists. ‘I consider it murder. From my experience, I can say that Russian prisons deliberately do not provide timely and necessary medical care. This is not just one such case,’ said Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis and former political prisoner Nariman Celâl during the OSCE International Conference on the Human Dimension.

The Zmina Human Rights Protection Centre reports dozens of cases where Ukrainian political prisoners are in mortal danger due to lack of medical care. Human rights activists propose to introduce personal sanctions against those responsible for the implementation of the standards for hospitalisation and treatment of prisoners at the level of colonies and pre-trial detention centres.

However, the Russian authorities carefully conceal access to such information. The only organisation that, according to Nariman Celâl, could influence the situation is the International Committee of the Red Cross. However, this organisation seems to be indifferent to both political prisoners and its own responsibilities to the international community.

‍

‍

‍