Institute for War & Peace Reporting IWPR, UK
Nov 13 2009

IWPR PROBES SHUSHI PRISON CONCERNS

Prison authorities allow reporter in to check conditions following
claims inmates are mistreated.

By Lusine Musaelyan in Shushi

For over a century, criminals in Nagorny Karabakh have feared the
Shushi fortress, a prison considered one of the toughest in the
Caucasus.

Now, following allegations of mistreatment by ex-prisoners and human
rights groups, the prison administration has allowed this IWPR
reporter behind its walls to see the conditions at first hand.

`The little black cat hasn’t committed a crime, but it’s in prison
too,’ said one of the prisoners in a rare joke. They were only allowed
to speak in the presence of a warder, and normally confined themselves
to praising prison conditions.

Administrators of the fortress, which was established in the 1860s and
was an infamous detention centre for Armenian dissidents in the Soviet
years, refused to say how many men were locked behind its walls,
revealing only that its capacity was 250 and that the inmates were
treated well.

Facilities were basic. In the cell I was allowed to visit there was a
metal bed, covered with a thin bedspread, along with a small cupboard.
An aluminium plate and cup sat on the cupboard, with some fried
potatoes, vegetables and chicken. Judging by the bits of tin foil, and
the fact that inmates are supposed to eat in the cafeteria, this food
appeared to have been provided by relatives.

The cell was decorated with icons, and its floor was of concrete.
Administrators said the prison was always warm, however, despite its
antiquated appearance.

They said the Shushi institution was known in Soviet times as `The Red
Zone’, because inmates were forced to behave well, without any of the
tolerated hierarchies and violence of other prisoners in the Soviet
Union.

Samvel Petrosian, governor of the prison, says the reputation was
deserved and to this day the prisoners were forced to obey only the
regulations.

Human rights groups and former inmates, however, say he was not
telling the whole truth, and that Shushi was as violent a place as
other prisons.

`In this prison, a criminal is not rehabilitated, he is just made more
aggressive and suppressed,’ said Hamo, who spent five years in Shushi
for assault, and asked not to be identified by his surname.

`There the prisoners have to obey the governor’s collaborators. I am
opposed to this, since there is supposed to be law, and normally the
demands of the law and the collaborators were different.’

The state ombudsman of Nagorny Karabakh, which governs itself as an
independent state but is considered to be a rebel part of Azerbaijan
by the United Nations, confirmed that inmates were not treated as they
should be.

`There are definitely violations in the prison,’ Ombudsman Yuri
Hayrapetian said. He wrote in the summer that regulations had been
changed to give prisoners the right to use a telephone, but there is
still no way for them to talk to the outside world.

Prisoners are also obliged to work for the jail ` this journalist saw
one working in the garden, some making furniture, one fetching tea and
one cleaning the courtyard ` despite a law stating that they cannot be
employed without payment.

Other facilities laid on for the prisoners also seemed minimal. A
computer class had just two dusty computers, which did not appear to
have been used for some time. A library also looked abandoned and had
few books.

Petrosian, the prisoner governor, said IWPR could talk to an inmate
but only in his presence and in his office. He chose Raphael
Tadevosian, a 21-year-old from the Armenian town of Hrazdan, as a
suitable interviewee.

`The administration helps us, and I am very grateful for this,’ he
said, but required prompting from Petrosian to say anything else.

`Tell about the food, and about how you don’t go hungry,’ ordered the governor.

`We eat meat as a starter and main course six days a week. For
breakfast, we are given porridge, fish, bread. They feed us well,’ the
young man said quickly, in words echoed by two other prisoners.

`We will not return here,’ said one of them, who did not want to give
his name. `But we approve of the demands made on us. I shave, I eat
well, I am not oppressed.’

According to Karabakh law, prisoners’ food should cost 1,000 dram
(about three US dollars) a day, which is sufficient to buy bread,
buckwheat, pasta, oil, sugar, vegetables, meat, fish, tea and juice.

The administrators say they receive all of this, but also said some
inmates had become so accustomed to prison life that they could not
survive on the outside and would commit crimes so as to return when
let out.

Lusine Musaelyan is a reporter for Radio Liberty in Stepanakert, and a
member of IWPR’s Cross Caucasus Journalism Network.