The Kemerovo human rights activist was detained on the way out of the pre-trial detention center. Earlier, he talked about torture in the structures of the Federal Penitentiary Service

Dmitry Kamynin, coordinator of the Siberia Pravovaya human rights project, who spent a year in a pre-trial detention center for possession of drugs, was detained immediately upon leaving the detention center. Now he is accused of extortion in 2017.

As the representative of Kamynin told the publication “Taiga.info”, the court will consider the petition for a measure of restraint on January 6. The newspaper also has a copy of the arrest report, which says that the human rights activist is charged with extorting money from a woman from Kemerovo. Allegedly, no later than December 5, 2017, Kamynin, together with unidentified persons, demanded from her a non-existent debt of 20 thousand rubles. For some reason she paid him 200 thousand.

Kamynin was arrested in December 2020 and charged with drug possession. During the arrest, the human rights activist, according to him, was beaten. In Kemerovo SIZO-1, he went on a hunger strike after being threatened by a “press-hut”.

Later Kamynin talked about how FSIN officers extort money from prisoners and their relatives. According to him, a relative transferred 100 thousand rubles to a bank card for one of the prisoners, so that her father would not be beaten.

“Eight years ago, employees of IK-22 and activists beat me with sticks, kicks, and stun guns,” Kamynin told Sibir.Realii journalists. Now the rights of prisoners are violated in the Kuzbass colonies even more often. In addition to IK-37, a very problematic one, for example, is the colony IK-16 in Abagur. Employees of the colonies take a “nondisclosure agreement” from those who are being released. This document has no legal force, but victims of torture are often afraid that if they tell the truth, they will be brought to justice. “

The material “Siberia.Realii” with the story of Kamynin and other prisoners about torture in Kemerovo isolation wards and colonies was published in June 2020. And in May 2021, the Kuzbass court ordered the author of the article to refute the stated information about torture and pay more than 70 thousand rubles for legal costs. Kamynin was one of the defendants in this case. This was before the Gulagu.net project published a video showing evidence of torture in Russian colonies.

Another prisoner who spoke about torture in the material “Sibir.Realiy” was Kamynin’s colleague, also a human rights activist for Sibir.Realiy, Vladimir Taranenko. Now he, too, is being charged with extortion.

Despite the persecution, in November 2021 Kamynin spoke about the “torture cell” in the basement of SIZO-1. According to him, the head of the operational-regime department of the institution uses the cell to “get rid of unwanted prisoners.”

On December 30, it became known that in the Irkutsk region arrested ex-prisoner of Angarsk colony No. 15, who was one of the first to talk about torture in Irkutsk pre-trial detention centers. A criminal case was initiated against him under the article on drugs (Article 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).