41.6-2: Perm camps; statements by political prisoners; in defence of political prisoners; Releases
The Perm Camps
5 April. Motryuk was deprived of a visit because he refused to stand in the presence of detachment commander Kuznetsov.
16 April. In answer to a declaration written by Zalmanson to Mikov, head of the Perm UVD Special Section, the camp was visited by First Lieutenant Timofeyev, who had a long talk with Zalmanson. Timofeyev said, in particular, that the leadership often had to rebuke the administration of camp 35, but he did not promise to take any concrete measures.
In April Zagrobyan, who was in the punishment cells for failing to fulfil the work norm, was put on ‘food every other day ‘.
19 April. Shakhverdyan sent a protest about the ‘genocide of the Armenians in camp 35’ to the Administrative Department of the CPSU Central Committee. An hour after handing in his declaration, Shakhverdyan was put in the cooler for rudeness and insulting behaviour to the administration.
19 April. Because of a report from Ostrovsky, leader of a prisoners’ building brigade (see CCEs 33, 39), the camp commandant put Mikitko in the cooler for 5 days. The reason for the report was failure to fulfil the norm.
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The 54-year-old Latvian peasant Ivars Grabans is in camp 35.
In 1944 he went off to the woods to join the nationalist partisans. He was one of the last to leave the forest life; in 1956 the authorities began to suggest that he should collaborate with them, but he refused and went to work on a collective farm. In 1968 Grabans was arrested and tried for treason. He was sentenced to 15 years. After he gets out, Grabans wants to go to Denmark, as he thinks that he will not be given a residence permit in Latvia.
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CCE 40 reported that Gluzman and Kalynets had been sent to Perm for prophylactic talks. It has become known that they have been sent back to the camp.
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Valery Marchenko’s private meeting with his mother was interrupted eight hours after it began, for a search. In a bag belonging to Marchenko’s mother they found the money for her return fare. Declaring that she had wanted to hand this over illegally to Marchenko, they ended the visit.
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Camp 36
In March 1976 Sergei Kovalyov spent 17 consecutive days in the cooler.
He got the first 10 days for ‘drinking tea in a different section of the camp’ (it was his birthday). He refused to go out to work from the cooler and was fed on the lowest ration norm, once every other day. Immediately after his release Kovalyov was given another 7 days in the cooler. He went on hunger-strike, ‘because of this inhuman behaviour and infringement of legality’. During the hunger-strike Kovalyov began to go out to work, and after five days he ended the hunger-strike.
In May there was an attempt to persuade Kovalyov to write a plea for pardon. At the end of May, after being harassed over a number of small faults, Kovalyov was put in the cooler again.
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Since 18 February (the anniversary of the uprising of the Dashnaktsutyun party in Armenia in 1921) Ashot Navasardyan has refused to go out to work or to obey the orders of the authorities. He is demanding that a referendum be carried out in Armenia on the question of legalizing the National United Party, of which he has declared himself a member. In addition, he demands that Armenian political prisoners should be held within the borders of their own republic.
In the spring Navasardyan was shut up in the cooler a number of times.
A. Navasardyan’s demands are those put forward by all the political prisoners who declare themselves to be members of the National United Party. In support of their demands, they hold a one-day hunger-strike on the fourth of every month (the fifth in December).
In July Navasardyan was taken to Erevan. There he was allowed a meeting with his sister and taken to visit his home.
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Letters and statements by political prisoners
From Igor Ogurtsov to the head of camp 35.
Ogurtsov gives information in his statement about two false reports made against him and asks that these reports be removed from his file.
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Bagrat Shakhverdyan: Statement to the supervisory commission of the executive committee of the Chusovoi Soviet of deputies.
Shakhverdyan writes about the tense relations which have developed between himself and the administration, and asks the supervisory commission to arrange a transfer to Vladimir Prison. Shakhverdyan argues his request in the words: ‘My nerves will not stand “re-education” as practised in camp 35.’
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K. Lyubarsky: To the Action Group for the Defence of Human Rights in the USSR (1 May 1976).
Lyubarsky reports that Mikhail Makarenko is threatened with psychiatric internment because of his numerous complaints. Captain Doinikov, who is ‘in charge’ of the political prisoners in Vladimir Prison, has said this openly and rudely more than once.
Lyubarsky recalls that Rogov, the prison psychiatrist, has several times discovered signs of psychiatric illness in political prisoners, usually not long before the end of their prison term. This happened to I. Ogurtsov, V. Merkushev, V. Berezin, L. Lukyanenko, V. Moroz and others. Threats of psychiatric treatment are the usual reaction to prisoners’ attempts to make complaints against the administration.
The author of the letter, who for many months shared a prison cell with M. Makarenko, considers him to be mentally healthy. He hopes that the support of his comrades in prison and the intervention of the Soviet and world democratic public will prevent the authorities from sending Makarenko to a psychiatric hospital.
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On 10 December 1975 Kronid Lyubarsky sent the Swiss Fund for Freedom and Human Rights a letter of thanks for awarding him the fund’s prize for 1975 (CCE 39 [and Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Zurich, 25 November 1975]). Galina Salova, Lyubarsky’s wife, also thanked the society in writing.
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Appeal of Soviet political prisoners to the chairman of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, D. Macdonald, and the General Secretary of the ICFTU, O. Kersten (Brussels),
The Soviet political prisoners ask that a new form of strike be introduced in addition to the seven forms of strike described by the ICFTU: ‘A hunger-strike is a strike.’ If a refusal to work is usually punished by administrative or judicial measures, the authors suggest that the following procedure should be established:
The striker should declare a hunger-strike. For the first three days he should continue to go to work, and then, while continuing the hunger-strike, he would be isolated in punishment cells and in this way released from work.
The authors recommend this method for people in a situation analogous to theirs. The authors of the suggestion are Gluzman, Kiirend, Svetlichny and Shakhverdyan.
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A telegram to the American people on Independence Day from political prisoners in the USSR.
‘Two hundred years ago the people of the English colonies in America proclaimed for mankind two fundamental principles of modem civilization, the right of every man to freedom, and the right of every nation to independence.
‘Neither barbed wire, nor sub-machine guns on sentry towers, nor guard-dogs, nothing can prevent us, political prisoners in the USSR, from being with you in spirit at this great moment in world history.
‘We wish for the American people the fulfilment of the aim set by the Founding Fathers, the creation of a brotherhood of free nations, a family of free peoples.’
[Signed] P. Airikyan, A, Arshakyan, I. Gel, A. Navasardyan, V, Ovsienko, Z. Popadyuk, P. Paulaitis, E. Pashnin, G. Rode, S. Soldatov, V. Stus, M, Kheifets, V. Chornovil, D. Shumuk.
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In Defence of Political Prisoners
Mikhail Bernstam: Open Letter to Savinkin, the director of the Department of Administrative Organs of the CPSU Central Committee (10 March 1976).
Having described the situation in prison of Vladimir Bukovsky, the author comes to the conclusion that they want to destroy Bukovsky, but are not resolute enough to kill him openly and are acting according to the method ‘We won’t let him die, but we won’t let him live either.’ Therefore for fifteen months of the last two years they have been keeping the seriously ill Bukovsky under strict regime, on the edge of dystrophy.
‘Who acts like this? A powerful State? No! Neighbours in a communal flat, overflowing with spite but both helpless and powerless!’
Bernstam advises: ‘If there is no longer the full resolve to commit evil dispassionately, it is time to retreat from killing people and simply imprison them.’
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Tatyana Velikanova, Malva Landa and Tatyana Khodorovich (25 May 1976): Appeal to public opinion about the situation of Soviet political prisoners.
The appeal contains abundant information about the punishments to which various prisoners in the camps of the Urals and Mordovia and in Vladimir Prison were subjected between May 1975 and April 1976. They name 19 political prisoners from Vladimir who were thrown into punishment cells during that time; 22 prisoners held under strict regime in Vladimir; 14 camp inmates who have been imprisoned in punishment cells; and 15 people who have been placed in camp coolers.
The authors want the Soviet camps and the prison in Vladimir to be inspected by an international commission.
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N. I. Bukovskaya, V. I. Isakova and G. I. Salova: Complaint to the Central Committee of the CPSU.
The mother of Vladimir Bukovsky, the wife of Georgy Davydov and the wife of Kronid Lyubarsky have sent a complaint about infringement of the right of correspondence to the Central Committee of the CPSU. A reply sent from the Main Administration for Corrective Labour Institutes [MACLI] of the M V D reported that ‘the overwhelming majority of letters addressed to Bukovsky, Lyubarsky and Davydov are handed over’. According to the figures of the M V D, during ‘recent months’, if one counts only registered and insured letters, the following numbers have been handed over: more than 70 to Lyubarsky, 30 to Bukovsky and 27 to Davydov.
‘At the same time, during checking, certain cases came to light when letters arriving for the prisoners were, without sufficient foundation, not handed over, in connection with which appropriate instructions have been given to the administration of the prison.’
On the other hand, confiscated letters from the prisoners themselves ‘contained inadmissible expressions’.
According to F. T. Kuznetsov, the deputy head of the M V D’s MACLI, who signed the letter, Bukovsky’s state of health is satisfactory.
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Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR: Their Treatment and Conditions. Published by Amnesty International, London, 1975.
This report, issued in London by Amnesty International, was prepared in the course of a dialogue between that organization and the Association of Soviet Jurists, which began in 1973 and continued during the World Congress of Peace-loving Forces [in October 1973 and a visit by a delegation from Amnesty’s International Executive Committee] in July 1974 in Moscow. The theme of the report is not only the conditions of detention of political prisoners but also Soviet corrective labour legislation. The compilers also refer to the relationship between basic human rights and the international obligations of the USSR on the one hand, and the theory and practice of Soviet legal proceedings in ‘political cases’ on the other. A special section examines the subject of compulsory treatment in psychiatric hospitals.
These are the titles of the sections of the report;
- Soviet criminal law and prisoners of conscience
- Soviet corrective labour legislation
- Maintenance of prisoners
- Reform of prisoners
- Relationship between prisoners and administration
- Prisoners’ states of mind
- Compulsory detention in psychiatric hospitals
- Recommendations. Appendix. Index.
The report is packed with facts whose reliability is supported by numerous references (including many to the Chronicle of Current Events), Dozens of political prisoners are mentioned by name in the report, and as a rule there are quite detailed accounts of their ‘cases’ and their situation. In the introduction Martin Ennals, the Secretary-General of Amnesty International, writes;
Representatives of the Association of Soviet Lawyers were shown an advance copy of this report at an international conference of lawyers in Algiers in April 1975. The draft typescript was then mailed to the chairman of the association, Lev Smirnov, in Moscow on 15 April. Mr Smirnov is also chairman of the Soviet Supreme Court. In a covering letter. Amnesty International indicated that it would welcome comments on the accuracy or interpretation of the facts in the report.
The Chronicle publishes in full Smirnov’s reply (translated from English):
Association of Soviet Jurists Moskva K-9 14 Kalinin Prospekt,
Mr Martin Ennals, Secretary-General of Amnesty International
53 Theobald’s Road London WCIX 8SP
27 August 1975
Dear Sir,
In connection with your letter dated April, 15th and so-called ‘Report of Conditions of Detention of Prisoniers of Conscience’ We would like to acknowledge you that ar we not eager to discass about what you call a book and that is vulgar falsification and defamation on Soviet reality and socialist legetimacy.
Sincerely,
L. Smirnov, President of the Soviet Lawyers’ Association [‘]
[Here, as elsewhere, the original text, not a re-translation from the Russian is given. In Smirnov’s letter, reproduced in facsimile in the report, the errors in the English are preserved.]
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Releases
In March 1976 Vitaly Kalinichenko (b. 1944) was released at the end of his sentence. He had served 10 years’ imprisonment under Article 64 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (‘betrayal of the motherland’) for attempting to cross the frontier. He was assigned to the town of Fastov, near Kiev.
In summer 1975 he was taken from the camp and moved around various hospitals: a month in a psychiatric block in Mordovia, a month in the Serbsky Institute, three months in the Sychyovka psychiatric hospital.
Kalinichenko returned to the camp a month before his release. Until the end of February he was in quarantine, after which he was sent to the camp hospital. He was released straight out of the hospital.
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On 15 March 1976 Georgy Davidenko was released at the end of his sentence. After his release he was immediately put under surveillance for a year. He is living in his home town of Nizhny Tagil. He was sentenced to 5 years for participating in the organization ‘Revolutionary Party of Intellectuals of the Soviet Union’. In CCE 33 his sentence was mistakenly given as 4 years.
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In the middle of March Nikolai Braun’s camp sentence ended and he was taken under convoy for 2 years’ exile in Tomsk Region. Not long before being sent into exile he spent 15 days in the cooler.
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Alexander Chekalin (CCE 33) was released from a Voroshilovgrad prison on 27 May 1976.
He had been taken there from Vladimir Prison. After his release he was assigned to residence in the town of Lysychansk, where he had lived before his arrest, and was immediately placed under surveillance. Chekalin received his identity papers only in the middle of June. He had difficulties finding work. The M V D surveillance organs are threatening Chekalin with a new prosecution, for ’parasitism’.
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In May 1976 Nadezhda Svetlichnaya (CCEs 25-29) was released at the end of her sentence.
A month before her release she was taken from the Mordovian camps and brought by aeroplane to her home Region in Voroshilovgrad Region, where she was held until the day of her release. They tried to persuade Svetlichnaya to remain there to live, but she is trying to obtain a residence permit for Kiev, where she lived until her arrest. Reports in previous issues of the Chronicle that Svetlichnaya’s sentence included 2 years’ exile are mistaken.
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In spring 1976 Sergei Korekhov (b. 1956) was released from the Perm camps. He was arrested in 1974 for distributing leaflets and sentenced to 2 years.
A Chronicle of Current Events 