Ivatsevichy colony prisoner set himself on fire because of inhuman treatment
- 6.01.2012, 0:07
A former prisoner of Ivatsevichy colony told how one of the prisoners set himself on fire about a month ago.
The reason for setting himself on fire was cruel treatment by the administration of the colony. For more than a month family members could not get any information about the state of health of the injured person, Radio Svaboda informs.
“Uladzimir A. had been kept in Ivatsevichy colony for 6 years,” the letter reads. “The conflict of our father with the administration happened because of his son who was placed in the same colony not long ago. Son received a parcel with jam. However he was not given the jam, and a statement of destruction was drawn up. To the question “Why?” from our son, the penitentiary servant used coarse language. Father went to demand apologies to his son. Because of that a guard report was made, and the father was deprived of meetings with relatives and a right for receiving another food parcel. Uladzimir announced a hunger strike officially, however the chief guard of his prisoner unit did not receive his petition. It should be added that A. is a diabetic, and besides he is a disabled person, he does not have one arm. After hard beating by policemen once the arm shrunk and was amputated.
After six days on hunger strike the prisoner poured some solvent on his head in front of the door of the chief of the prisoners’ unit and set himself on fire. He was rescued by other prisoners. They knocked him down on the floor and extinguished the fire.
Policemen tried to persuade the head of the medical unit to keep A. in the hospital of the colony. However he did not want to take responsibility for that. An ambulance first took Uladzimir to a regional hospital, and in a few days he was transferred to Brest.
The most outrageous thing in this situation is that for almost a month and a half neither his son in the colony nor his family at large can get any information about his health. Recently there were rumours that A. died. However we cannot confirm or disprove this information.”
As said by a relative of A., one of these days Uladzimir was taken back from Brest to the medical unit of the colony. So far nether she nor the son of the prisoner who had informed her about that had any information about his state of health.
“He made a phone call from a public pay telephone. The conversation was short, and not all things were heard clearly. He said that father needs some ointments and sprays. He said he saw the father: he looks awful, he lies in bed and is skeletal,” the woman said to Radio Svaboda.
The woman confirmed that she called to the hospital in Brest and made an inquiry to the Corrections Department over the period when A. was in a hospital. To her phone calls doctors answered: come and you will find out everything in a private conversation. The Corrections Department’s answer was very short: the patient is in satisfactory condition.
The woman also recalls that shortly before the tragedy A. called her from the colony and informed that he had problems with the prison administration. He was not even given parcels with cigarettes sent to him.
The relative does not know what would happen to A. in the colony or at large. He does not have anyone to take care of him. His wife is a hard drinker. His daughter does not want to have anything in common with her father or brother. Son’s wife hangs on by the skin of teeth supporting three children, and besides economizes money for parcels to the colony…