Yana Nepovinnova's Commentary
My name is Yana Nepovinnova, I am a lawyer. I’ve just been to the pre-trial detention center No.5 to see Sasha Skochilenko, and I will tell you a little about what’s happening to her at the moment. A week ago, I saw her at the temporary detention facility of the Vasileostrovsky District, and her state was much better then, of course. Now she met me with tears in her eyes: you could see that she is in a very unstable emotional state.
Now she is in a cell of 18 people. She has a top bunk bed, and according to the rules of the detention center, she can’t use her bed during the day, so she can only sit down on someone’s bed with her cellmates’ permission. The toilet isn’t in a very good condition and keeps leaking, so it gets damp, which is why the cell is being aired out constantly, and it is very cold.
In terms of nutrition, it’s still the same: no one has organized a special gluten-free diet for her, so Sasha has serious difficulties with food. The parcel that was passed to the temporary facility for her wasn’t passed on to the detention center, and she hasn’t received any parcels here yet. She is not eating what they are giving to her at the detention center, she doesn’t even touch this food, and she tries to get something from her cellmates, or eats what she has left—what little she has left. There are no improvements in terms of her health. She still has aches, she’s very sick, and she is very scared of having a nervous breakdown, because her psychoemotional state is on the verge of it, it seems. She is really trying to avoid it and not give into the circumstances around her.
On Friday, she had ultrasound; she also saw a psychiatrist who was the only person who had some sympathy for her and gave her hot tea. Unfortunately, Sasha paid for this, because an employee of the center didn’t like it at all, and started threatening Sasha rudely, saying that she’d file a report on her and Sasha’d stay here for a long time because she supposedly insulted her. The employee also threatened to write a complaint about Sasha’s friends, thus pressuring her psychologically in different ways.
Sasha’s brave, she’s not giving up, she doesn’t respond to these provocations, but I’m really afraid that her courage might not last very long because in the conditions she’s in now, it’s very hard to keep a cool head and maintain sound judgement.
Also, Sasha’s cellmates aren’t letting her complain [about the conditions] because it’s not something they’re used to doing. I think that these people have been there for years and they have been pressured psychologically so much that they’ve just broken down and no longer believe that it is possible to improve their conditions in any way. So now Sasha is under psychological pressure because these people who surround her [are] the people who practically make certain basic decisions: when she can use the toilet, when she can wash her face, when and where she can sit down. It’s very hard to resist this kind of pressure. She can’t blame them because these people just are in such circumstances that don’t let them think normally. Everyone is afraid, everyone is very scared, and she really hopes that she will still have the strength to speak up about what’s going on.
Also, she is watching TV from morning till evening, she can’t help it in any way. The TV is tuned to Channel One [a pro-government channel].
There are some positives: it’s one of the best cells because it’s for non-smokers. Also, Sasha avoided the isolation cell: usually, people who are transferred to the detention center end up in the isolation cell first, and are relocated from there. And, according to the people who are with Sasha now, the conditions are even worse there.
Also, there is no physical pressure, no investigation officers are coming to see her outside the procedure, so in this respect, she is safe, no one on the side of the investigation or the court is pressuring her.
She was very glad to hear that people support her not only in our country but beyond it as well, that people are talking and writing about her, that people are writing to her. And it’s the only thing that can be done now, supporting her with letters and spreading the information about her. Because what happened to her is horrible.
04/25/2022