On poor food and lost letters

Today I visited Sasha in the detention center. She is not feeling very well because she’s eating too little: for some reason, the gluten-free meals don’t always reach her and it often happens that she has to go without her breakfast or lunch. Sasha has already filed a complaint about this, but unfortunately, after the complaint the situation got more difficult instead of improving. Sasha is constantly feeling faint, has a dry mouth, aches in her heart and her stomach, nausea, sleepiness after eating the food provided in the detention center. Sasha is also complaining about intermittent hot water and the lack of heating, even though the nights are still cold.

While Sasha was at the meeting with me, her cell was searched. She learned about this during the meeting and was worried about her belongings and food.

Sasha asked me to tell you that she got over a hundred of “FPS-letters” [letters sent to the prisoners via an online service], and she is replying to every single one of them. She is worried that she might not be getting some of your letters. This may be why you still have not received a reply from her; also, it takes very long for the replies to pass the censors.

Sasha finally got back some of her books that were passed to her while she was still at the temporary detention facility.

Sasha is very upset about the decision of the city court’s dismissal of the appeal to change her pre-trial measure. Sasha asked me to tell you that for a couple of seconds she was still able to see how many people came to the city court to support her, and she could hear your reaction to the court’s verdict—but the camera was turned off instantly. [The hearing was closed to the public, and Sasha was only present there via a video call. During the pronouncement of the verdict, the public was allowed inside the courtroom, but the cameras were turned away from them so that Sasha would not be able to see her supporters.]

Sasha said hello and big thanks for the support—it truly is very important and means a lot to her now.

Also, Sasha’s cellmate had a birthday yesterday: she turned 19. Sasha bought a cake at the jail store and put some matches into it, so that the birthday girl could blow them like candles.

05/23/2022