Rights defenders report violation of prisoners' rights to medical care

In Moscow, the Independent Press Centre has hosted the press conference titled: "A person in prison: the right to the protection of life and health". The main topic of the press-conference was devoted to the conditions of detention of sick people in Russian prisons. The event was organized by the Moscow Regional Public Charitable Foundation "Social Partnership" founded by Ella Panfilova and Galina Starovoitova in 1990, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

While speaking at the press conference, Lyubov Volkova, the President of the "Social Partnership" Foundation, has reminded the audience that after the Law "On public control over the penitentiary system" was adopted in 2008, members of the Public Oversight Commissions (POCs) were provided with the possibility to monitor the conditions of detention of sick people in the medical centres of the penitentiary system. Meanwhile, the rights defender has described those conditions as "torture".

At the press conference, Valery Borschov, the Chairman of the "Social Partnership" Foundation, reminded that social activists focused on the topic of forensic medicine after the death of Sergey Magnitsky.

"Prison medicine fails to fulfil its direct functions; it is not the medicine it should be, in violation of the European Prison Rules signed by Russia, according to those, the prisoner's right to medical care is the same as the right of free citizen: that is, it should not be limited. However, the rule is not met; the system is closed, not transparent, and that means there are grounds for arbitrariness," Valery Borschov has said.

The participants of the press conference also discussed the report "On the conditions of confinement of Chechnya and Ingushetia residents in the penitentiary institutions in the period from September 2011 to August 2014". presented in Moscow on March 31.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.