Russian prisoners were deprived of the right to communicate with their families via video communication, writes Eva Merkacheva, a member of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights (HRC), in her column for Moskovsky Komsomolets. According to her information, such an order was given by the deputy director of the Federal Penitentiary Service, Alexander Khabarov. The function of communicating with relatives via video is unavailable in colonies throughout Russia for an indefinite period, the human rights activist notes.
The reason for the ban on video conferencing could be an incident in an unnamed Mordovian colony, where one of the prisoners allegedly molested a minor girl, Merkacheva notes. According to a member of the HRC, the decision to ban was made too quickly, and the effectiveness of such measures is questionable. An isolated, yet unproven case cannot be a reason to ban an entire function, Merkacheva is sure. At the same time, the human rights activist emphasizes that there are no supervisory authorities that control such communication, so it can be difficult to keep track of all the excesses.
Merkacheva believes that the ability to communicate with relatives and see each other through a screen has helped hundreds of thousands of prisoners reform. According to the human rights activist, today about 1.5 thousand colonies in Russia are equipped with equipment for video communication between prisoners and their families. The average number of calls to relatives per year among prisoners, according to Merkacheva, is about 300 thousand.
The human rights activist proposed to finalize the legal status of such calls and completely legalize the possibility of communication in colonies via video.
Source: Rosbalt
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