Mikhail Trepashkin's keeping conditions changed for better

As it has become known to the Foundation for Civil Liberties, lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin, who is kept at the Investigatory Isolation Ward "Matrosskaya Tishina" stopped suffering torture on December 30 and was taken to a 4-seated ward.

It was reported earlier that Trepashkin has been kept in an overcrowded ward (3 people per one sleeping berth) for a month and has been subjected to torture by hunger, cold and sleep deprivation.

In exchange for the cessation of torture and moving to the better ward, Trepashkin had to make a signed statement that he had no claims against his keeping conditions at the investigatory isolation ward.

Shortly before it, a deputy chief of the prison summoned Trepashkin, expressed his dissatisfaction with the complaint Trepashkin had made to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and threatened him with a punishment cell.

While commenting on this information, Aleksandr Goldfarb, head of the Foundation for Civil Liberties, said, "A threat of torture is just the same violation of human rights as torture itself. There is no ground to be thankful to the executioner if he decided to take rest. Trepashkin's arrest as well as his case is completely concocted. So he must be immediately released but not taken from one ward to another."

Editors note: See also the article "Case of Mikhail Trepashkin: defendant's statement about torture used against him".