Kazakhstan - Human rights defender Vadim Kuramshin beaten and continues to suffer harassment in prison

Kazakhstan. "Vadim Kuramshin, the political prisoner who before his imprisonment was an active campaigner against torture in the prisons and prison colonies of Kazakhstan has been badly beaten."
Vadim Kuramshin beaten and continues to suffer harassment in prison

"Vadim Kuramshin, the political prisoner who before his imprisonment was an active campaigner against torture in the prisons and prison colonies of Kazakhstan has been badly beaten. Due to the clamp down on information, during the latest visit by his wife Vadim was covered by five guards with truncheons to prevent him speaking openly, we can only give preliminary information


 and are awaiting the results of a proper investigation which should be due in a month.

At the beginning of April thanks to campaigning by his supporters both within Kazakhstan and internationally by Campaign Kazakhstan, Vadim was transferred from a strict prison regime to a regime in which conditions are supposed to be more relaxed. However, clearly the prison authorities had other intentions.

Worrying information from a number of sources as well as from Vadim himself that he was being openly harassed and that an attempt was being made to find any excuse to punish Vadim has been appearing for some time. However the prison authorities were not able to make open attacks on Vadim at least until the end of last year. Because of the worsening situation, Vadim felt so concerned he announced a hunger strike at the end of February. However after concessions from the prosecutor’s office, Vadim abandoned his protest.

During a recent visit from his lawyer, however, he noticed that Vadim showed signs of bruising and one of his eyes was bloodshot. Although it was clear he had been attacked, Vadim himself refused to confirm this and was more concerned that he should be transferred to a new prison. When his wife, Ekaterina tried to raise the issue with the prison authorities she was refused the right to even register a complaint. She did not want to push the issue too hard as Vadim was due for a three day visit from his family.

During this visit, Ekaterina noticed that Vadim was under psychological pressure, he had difficulty expressing his thoughts, was nervous and hardly sleeps. When she asked Vadim how he had received the bruises, he simply said he “had fallen”. Vadim did say, however, that the prison authorities had warned him that if any more complaints were made “the next time he would be beaten by those who had not yet helped to do so!” Ekaterina comments that both she and her husband are “angry to the depths of our souls at such threats” and calls for Vadim’s immediate transfer to a colony nearer to the capital.

On the way back from her visit, Ekaterina’s car caught fire and she was nearly involved in an accident. Her car had been in the care of the prison authorities during her visit. She comments: “of course, I very much want to think that this was an accident, but the specialists think differently. Who knows? Maybe they have gone from words to actions”.

We demand from the prison authorities in Kazakhstan to cease this brutal treatment of this innocent person. We demand that Vadim Kuramshin is provided with the medical assistance he requires. We support the protest made by Vadim to the head of the prison security Zhomart Aitbaev at the attempts made to discredit and harass his partner Ekaterina Kuramshina.

This Aitbaev is the same security chief who on 1st November 2013 organised a sexual attack on Vadim by thugs from the prison's so called «press hut”. This led Vadim to cut the veins in his wrist in protest. Yet notwithstanding international protests, Aitbaev has since been promoted.

We are determined to fully investigate the circumstances surrounding the beating of Vadim. As his lawyer, Dmitrii Baranov, explains: “even before this attack, Vadim was concerned that something of this sort would happen, or that he would face provocations from his “cell-mate” trying to create a conflict”. He also reported that the other person sharing the cell is constantly trying to create an argument. But Vadim assured his lawyer that he would do all in his power not to succumb to such provocations.

Whoever has ordered these attacks and whoever has carried them out will be discovered, so for now just a few words from Vadim in which he remembers his latest beating: “It’s evening, I’ve just coming to myself, I’m filling my stomach with fortifying tea and look out of the window where the icy night is already setting in. I sit down, look out into the dark turning over the events of the last couple of days in my mind”.

Campaign Kazakhstan is demanding that these brutal attacks on Vadim Kuramshin cease, that those responsible for the attacks are brought to justice and that Vadim is transferred from his current prison to a prison nearer the capital Astana.

Please send letters and protests to the Kazakhstan embassy responsible for your country."

(Thanks to Ainur Kurmanov for the English text, Source/källa: Ainur Kurmanov)



Русская планета: Правозащитник под прессом - (Vadim Kuramshin under pressure):
http://rusplt.ru/world/pravozaschitnik-pod-pressom-9337.html

Vadim's blog:
http://www.kuramshyn.org/blog/2014-04-16-337

svobodakz.net;
http://www.svobodakz.net/news/189-vadimu-kuramshinu-i-ego-zhene-grozit-smertelnaya-opasnost.html
Вадиму Курамшину и его супруге грозит смертельная опасность!



On my blog: "Kazakhstan - Awarded human rights defender Vadim Kuramshin under psychological torture - do you care?"
http://minkristnasamhllsblogg.blogspot.fi/2014/01/kazakhstan.html



On my blog (with summary of Vadim's case): "Kazakhstan's living Gulags - concentration camps - life under the Nazarbayev dictatorship 2013 - oil trade or human rights?"
http://minkristnasamhllsblogg.blogspot.fi/2013/10/kazakhstans-living-gulags-concentration.html





Photo of Vadim Kuramshin (Internet)