Tedious manual work, poor hygiene and lack of access to medical care - such are the conditions awaiting U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in a Russian penal colony after she lost her appeal last week against a nine-year drug sentence.
It's a world familiar to Maria Alyokhina, a member of feminist art ensemble Pussy Riot who spent nearly two years as an inmate for her part in a 2012 punk protest in a Moscow cathedral against President Vladimir Putin.
"It actually is a labour camp because by law all the prisoners should work. The quite cynical thing about this work is that prisoners usually sew police uniforms and uniforms for the Russian army, almost without salary." A more recent penal colony detainee, Yelena, described a similar regime to that experienced by Alyokhina a decade ago.
Prisoners could face punishment for inexplicable "offences" such as placing a wristwatch on a bedside table. The ultimate sanction was solitary confinement, known as "the Vatican". David Whelan said his brother must work at least eight hours a day, six days a week, on menial tasks like making buttonholes, which has caused him repetitive strain injury.
"His phone calls even to our parents are recorded. His letters were all translated before they went out. So you know that everything you do is being watched and you really have no sense of individuality."
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Brittney Griner faces bleak life in Russian penal colony | CNNTedious manual work, poor hygiene and lack of access to medical care -- such are the conditions awaiting US basketball star Brittney Griner in a Russian penal colony after she lost her appeal last week against a nine-year drug sentence.
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Brittney Griner faces bleak life in Russian penal colonyTedious manual work, poor hygiene and lack of access to medical care - such are the conditions awaiting U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in a Russian penal colony after she lost her appeal last week against a nine-year drug sentence. It's a world familiar to Maria Alyokhina, a member of feminist art ensemble Pussy Riot who spent nearly two years as an inmate for her part in a 2012 punk protest in a Moscow cathedral against President Vladimir Putin. The first thing to understand, Alyokhina said in an interview, is that a penal colony is no ordinary prison.
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