Issue No. 26-2011. Content

The first section, “Social Punishment”, opens with the Penitentiary Department’s official statistics as of March 1, 2011. Yuri Alexandrov’s column “Legal Training” comments on the latest amendments to legislation regulating the judiciary, law enforcement and executive power. That is followed by the Council of Europe’s penitentiary statistics as of September 1, 2009. A story by A. Zimbovsky describes the demonstrative trial over Sergey Mokhnatkin, the sole person convicted in the framework of legal confrontation in Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square between law enforcement and activists defending people’s constitutional right to hold rallies and demonstrations. In the article “Two Letters from the Prison Camp”, real prisoners describe Russia’s judiciary and penitentiary systems as they see them. That is followed by “A Watchdog Committee Member’s Notes”, in which Boris Panteleyev reflects on problems facing this newly established intra-penitentiary body defending human rights. The section closes with FDPR chronicles about developments and incidents within the penitentiary system, and an anthology of foreign media reports about prison life in different countries of the world.

In the section “The Boundaries of Incomprehension”, N. Khananashvili cites cogent arguments in defence of juvenile justice – a fragile, actually non-existent, legal institution in Russia – against frenzied attacks by judiciary officials.

The section “Sit and Read” features the final part of prisoner Eduard Mikhailov’s autobiographic novel “The Chui Valley, or A Farewell to Childhood”, followed by A. Laptev’s review of A. Naumov’s book “A Special Zone for Has-Beens” and A. Mokrousov’s detailed review of Dmitry Churov’s book “Among Those Reported Missing” with an excerpt from the book.

Nevolia. Issue # 26-2011. Print version (PDF, Russian, 665 Kb)