On February 21st, 2013, in the morning, lawyer Roman Kachanov and human rights defender Aleksey Sokolov arrived at a federal public institution: penal colony№46 of the General Directorate of the Federal Service for Execution of Punishment of Sverdlovsk Region (Nevyansk town) so as to render legal assistance to a group of convicts who asked for help through their relatives due to tortures and beatings being applied to them, they declared, by a number of this institution´s officers.
However, Aleksey Sokolov, an Expert of the Foundation “For the Rights of Convicts”, a Russian well-known human rights defender, was not admitted to see these convicts despite the fact that he presented all necessary documents to Head of the penal colony №46 (federal public institution) I.V.Chikin, Deputy Head of the colony V.I.Pospelov and the colony´s lawyer.
Besides, illegal actions against lawyer Roman Kachalov also took place in the colony.
So, during the meetings with the convicts who asked for help, the meetings were interrupted abruptly by an anonymous officer of penal colony №46 who didn´t explain the reasons. There practically were real meetings with only three convicts (the last one was not complete). The officer of penal colony№46 demanded lawyer Roman Kachanov follow him into the office of the Junior Inspector of the Security Department, where Major A.I.Nikolayev also arrived.
During the conversation with lawyer R.Ye.Kachanov, Major Aleksey Ivanovich Nikolayev demanded he show him the explanation written in his presence by one of the convicts. Lawyer R.Ye.Kachanov explained to him that this was a client-lawyer privilege, but the first one insisted. While he demonstrated the first page of this explanation, the other one tore it out. Then he invited several officers (approximately 5 to 7) who demanded the lawyer R.Ye.Kachanov take all the things out of his bag and his pockets onto the table, which meant, they examined his things illegally, without drawing up proper documents.
He was also illegally submitted to metal detector inspection.
The colony’s officers considered that the things they found – a hard disk, a USB cable, Ritmix voice recorder, a flash card, Ekaterinburg city atlas and Ekaterinburg city map – were objects prohibited to be brought in in a correctional institution.
Lawyer Roman Kachanov spent a long time explaining to the colony’s officers that those objects were not considered illegal, he even presented them the Sentence of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated February 7th, 2012, which took legal effect and according to which clauses 76, 80 of the Internal Rules of Conduct and clause 18 of their Annex№1 were recognized as inoperative in the part that prohibits the usage of a voice recorder, photo and video devices by a lawyer (a human rights defender) during a meeting with a convict.
But the staff of penal colony№46 didn’t show any reaction to the explanations of lawyer Kachanov and went on with their illegal actions.
Moreover, Major A.I.Nikolayev went somewhere with the voice recorder which belonged to lawyer Kachanov and came back about 25 minutes later. Apparently, he illegally copied data from it. Also, Major A.I.Nikolayev illegally took away his personal documents containing client-lawyer privilege data, particularly, the explanation of one of the convicts, a summary of explanations of other convicts and an agreement with a convict.
After that, Senior Inspector of the Security Department of penal colony№46 (federal public institution), Internal Services Major D.V.Melnikov drawed up a protocol on administrative infraction against lawyer Roman Kachanov saying that at 9:30 he entered the territory of the living zone of penal colony№46 (federal public institution), passed to the premises destined to lawyers´ work and had with him objects whose acquisition, possession and usage by convicts is prohibited by law.
Lawyer Roman Kachanov and human rights defender Aleksey Sokolov are outraged about such a scandalously illegal behavior of penal colony№46´s officers and are determined to struggle in courts for the legality and justice.
Lawyer Roman Kachanov´s case will be considered at a court hearing on March 5th this year, at 3 p.m., by the Judge of the Peace of judicial district№2 at the following address in Nevyansk town: Nevyansk town, Lenina St., 9.
The visit to penal colony№46 demonstrated that the officers of this colony were not only illiterate in legal terms.
So, within this colony, human rights defenders noted an information board for citizens, where there were several cases of the same mistake in the Russian word “oblast” (“region” in English). It turns out that the prison wardens of penal colony№46 don’t live in Sverdlovsk RegiOn, but in Sverdlovsk RegiAn (in Russian: not “oblAst”, but “oblOst”).
The information presented on this board is very INFORMATIVE.
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