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Volha Nikalaichyk: You are in hands of unpunished gang in detention centre

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Volha Nikalaichyk: You are in hands of unpunished gang in detention centre

A journalist and film director shares her impressions about the arrest.

Volha Nikalaichyk was secretly taken out of the detention centre in Akrestsin Street yesterday evening, so that her friends couldn't meet her outside the jail. The activist gave an interview to charter97.org next day. She said what he saw and heard during five days in custody.

“To be short, even experienced prisoners say that it's better to be in prison than in a temporary detention centre. Firstly, you cannot call a doctor. No one pays attention to you until you begin to die. If you knock and remind them, they can punish you. I saw that a sick woman was transferred to the so called box, a tiny dark cell (1x1 metre), where you only can stand. You can touch the opposite wall with your knees if you sit down. Prison officers can leave you there for a day. If you asked matches and they said 'no', you can be deprived of something or sent to the 'box' if you ask them again,” Volha says.

– It's clear that sanitary is a huge problem. What did you personally see?

– The toilet didn't flush and we had only hot water. They switched on cold water a couple of times, and we were able to flush. It stank. All use the toilet, and all have diarrhea. Prison officers did it on purpose. They wanted us to suffocate. All women smoke. I don't smoke, as I have problems with the heart. I am still coughing, because inmates were smoking day and night. They smoked tobacco rolled in newspapers. It was hard due to smoke. If there were cells for non-smokers! It's only my dream, of course. You can tolerate other things. I can stay hungry for a long time. I filled a bottle with hot water and waited until it got cold to drink it. Water is awful in that district.

I asked prison officers if they wash up properly, because I noticed traces of porridge in the aluminum bowl with soup and on the spoon. They answered rudely that I am nobody to ask questions and they didn't have to report to me. I said they didn't have to report to me, but they would have to report to someone else, because I would tell sanitary services that the jail infects people with TB, hepatitis C, syphilis and so on. I told them they would answer if I got ill. In response, they left us without dinner and transferred people to the 'box'.

– What did you eat? Did you have problems with health due to food?

– I came to a conclusion that the detention centre in Akrestsin Street is a sort of a commercial organisation. One may think that a restaurant sends its meal to the jail. I was charged 360,000 rubles for five days there. A cutlet there is bread crumb soaked in ground meat juice. It seemed sometimes that cutlets were not fried. All of us got poisoned. Some inmates had diarrhea. I went on a hunger strike on January 26 in solidarity with Nadezhda Savchenko. I warned my lawyer and had a hunger strike. If I hadn't done it, I would have problems with the stomach today. Everyone in the cell had problems with the stomach.

– How did prison officers treat you?

– They left us without supper for every question. One woman, a thief, could not receive her belongings with toilet paper, cigarettes and sausages, though she filed a request. Another woman, a dishwasher, had a scalded hand that began to rot. She couldn't call a doctor. She met her in the corridor and said: 'Do something with my hand, it's been rotting for the third day, sepsis can begin.' The doctor said: 'Go to your cell. I will cut you hand off if you complain again.' And these people took the Hippocratic Oath! The wall has many holes, so we could heard what was happening there. They were swearing and laughing all night! Poor women had to knock, ask cigarettes, clean toilets, offices and so on.

We were in the hands of a gang that can do everything with people. This gang mocks people for their own money. They have power and do whatever they want. No one will learn anything about it. They felt a little nervous when they learnt I was a journalist and documentary director. It was unpleasant for them to understand that I really could file a complaint. They felt uncomfortable when a lawyer visited me. They saw that they could not isolate and mock me. Some people are held there for months. One of the inmates was a mentally ill old woman who needed treatment. She is not an alcoholic. She just sits and talks to herself. She hasn't taken a shower for two months. Why is she there and not at a psychiatric hospital? A drug addict and thief with prison experience said that the temporary detention centre in Akrestsin Street is worse than normal prisons, which are more open, where doctors treat and food it better.

– Friends were waiting for you outside the detention centre and worrying when you didn't appear on time. How were you released?

– I was ordered to leave the cell with my bag at 8 in the evening. They ordered me to get into a car without a window, with bars. I asked them what they were afraid of. I said I would go to the metro and wouldn't wait for my friends, because it was cold and I didn't have warm boots. But I was taken to the Tsentralny district police office. They threw me into a cell with homeless people. I was held there until 21:25, the time of my arrest. I had bus tickets in my pockets, so I went home. I didn't have a mobile phone, because my friends took my bag when I was returning from Homel from Mikhail Zhyzneuski's death anniversary. I had a firework, his portrait and documents on me. I received my bag back only yesterday. I wasn't able to tell people not to wait for me outside the jail.

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