Horrifying new video has emerged that shows the brutality going on inside Russian President Vladimir Putin's prisons. The fresh footage appears to show inside Russia's "torture conveyor belt" jails where inmates are allegedly raped and mutilated. The video shows inmates being sexually assaulted in a notorious prison hospital at the heart of a national torture scandal.
The video was released on the YouTube channel of a prominent NGO that tracks abuses in Russia's prison system. However, the video was no more available on YouTube at the time of writing this article. Gulagu.net, the right's group that published the video, has sent it to the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT).
Inhuman Treatment
The new videos show prisoners being terrorized and being subjected to degrading treatment in Putin's jails. The gory footages show inmates being brutally beaten and raped. One video footage shows at least five inmates being urinated on, raped and violated with blunt objects. The graphic video, which contains six clips, are dated July 2015-September 2020 and are marked 18+ for adult audiences only.
According to the group, the abuse took place in OTB-1, a prison the Saratov region, close to the border with Kazakhstan. "These terrifying videos are unpleasant to watch and will cause stress and indignation," Vladimir Osechkin, the founder of the Gulagu.net rights group, wrote.
"But it's important to show the entire world the torturous essence of Russia's prison system to punish those guilty and force the Russian authorities to finally end their inhumane secret methods," Osechkin said.
Dangerous Claims
The rights group also claims that the prisons employ gangs of rapists to provide cover for them if their presence was questioned. However, it's alleged their actual job was the routine sexual abuse of inmates as part of a "criminal conspiracy" operating within the jail. It is not known what please Putin and his administration get out fo yet or the real purpose behind this brutality.
The rapes are allegedly filmed and the footages are sent to the security services so that it could be archived and then used as blackmail. The shocking video footages come after Gulagu earloier exposed a sickening video that showed a naked man screaming in pain as he is tied to a bed and violated with a mop handle at a tuberculosis hospital in the jail.
Gulagu.net's latest release is part of a massive trove obtained by former inmate Sergei Savelyev, a Belarusian national who smuggled the videos in a USB stick and is currently seeking asylum in France.
Russian police placed Savelyev on a wanted list last month on charges of obtaining legally protected data and sharing it with a third party for media distribution. He could face up to four years in Russian prison if extradited and found guilty.
