Political Prisoner Dmitry Pchelintsev: “Please Tell Mom That I’m Well”

“Please Tell Mom That I’m Well”: An Antifascist in the Vyatka Prison Castle
Ekaterina Loushnikova
Idel.Realii (Radio Svoboda)
January 7, 2021

Dmitry Pchelintsev. Archive photo courtesy of RFE/RL

In December 2020, Dmitry Pchelintsev was transferred to the Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 1 in Kirov aka the Vyatka Prison Castle, where he met with members of the Kirov Public Monitoring Commission.

Pchelintsev was detained in October 2017 in Penza by the FSB. Before his arrest, he worked as a shooting instructor for the Union of Paratroopers of Russia, a veterans organization, and played airsoft (a team sport involving the use of pneumatic weapons). Among young people in Penza, Dmitry was known as an antifascist, campaigning against neo-Nazism, chauvinism and social inequality.

According to FSB investigators, Pchelintsev and his comrades from Penza, St. Petersburg, Moscow and Belarus organized a “network” of “combat groups,” planning an armed seizure of power via attacks on military enlistment offices, police stations, armories, and United Russia party offices. Pchelintsev was charged with organizing a “terrorist community” and illegal possession of weapons. During interrogations at the Penza Pre-Trial Detention Center, the antifascist confessed that he was the “leader of a terrorist organization.” Later, Pchelintsev told lawyer Oleg Zaitsev that his “confessions” had been obtained under torture.

“They pulled off my underpants. I was lying down on my stomach, and they tried to attach the wires to my genitals. I shouted and asked them to stop tormenting me. They started saying, ‘You’re the leader.’ So that they would stop the torture, I would say, ‘Yes, I’m the leader.’ ‘You were going to commit terrorist acts.’ I would answer, ‘Yes, we were going to organize terrorist attacks.'”

Despite complaints from Pchelintsev and other defendants in the so-called Network Case about being tortured during the investigation, no criminal case on the matter was opened.

On February 10, 2020, the Volga District Military Court found Pchelintsev guilty of “creating a terrorist community” and sentenced him to eighteen years in prison in a high-security penal colony. The Memorial Human Rights Center said that the testimony in the Network Case had been obtained under torture, and recognized Pchelintsev and his comrades as political prisoners. The lawyers of the defendants in the Network Case have filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg.

The meeting at Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 1 in Kirov was held via video link: during the coronavirus pandemic , all visits, including with members of the PMC, have been prohibited at the prison. During the conversation with Pchelintsev, two employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service were present: Pchelintsev did not insist on “privacy.” He unexpectedly praised the Vyatka Prison Castle for obeying the law.

“The conditions of detention are excellent!” said the political prisoner. “Especially in comparison with the Penza Pre-Trial Detention Center. There is no pressure on me: they do not beat me, they do not intimidate me, they treat me politely.

“And how are they feeding you?” the human rights activists asked.

“The food is good, too, the food is delicious. But the problem is that I’m a vegetarian, and in keeping with my beliefs I don’t eat meat dishes. So, I’m looking forward to having money transferred to my account from Penza to Kirov so that I can buy my own food in the prison store. Also, I still have things and medicines in Penza. I was taking drugs to treat my joints, but none of this has been sent yet.”

“How is your health?”

“I’m an asthmatic. I got the condition during my imprisonment in the Penza Pre-Trial Detention Center, and now I constantly need a Seretide inhaler. I have a prescription from a doctor. By law, I should get Seretide at public expense. But when I submitted a request for an inhaler to he Kirov Pre-Trial Detention Center, I was told that all funds were going to fight covid, that there was no money for other drugs.”

“Are you being held in solitary confinement?”

“No, there are four people in my cell. I have good relations with everyone, there are no conflicts. Recently, I was transferred to the ‘quarantine’ wing, where I will stay for twenty-one days, after which I will be sent to the penal colony. However, I have already been told that when I arrive at the camp, I will most likely be placed in the ‘strict conditions’ wing since I have a terrorism conviction, and from the viewpoint of my jailers, I am an ‘extremist.’ No, I have not been charged with any rules violations in the Kirov Pre-Trial Detention Center. But I suspect that the ground is being prepared for putting the squeeze on me. For some reason, many people believe that I was convicted not only for terrorism, but also for murder. I think this bias toward me is based on hearsay.”

“You mean the article in Meduza about the murder of two young people, your comrades?”

“Yes, in the Kirov detention center, as it turned out, everyone had read this article or heard something. I really don’t want to be seen as a murderer when I arrive at the camp. I had no dealings with those guys (Ekaterina Levchenko and Artyom Dorofeyev), and I don’t know anything about their murder. I have deep sympathy for their relatives, but I’m not to blame for this tragedy. I think that it’s another provocation on the part of the FSB, which, nevertheless, many people believe is true.”

“Are you a believer? Do you have any religious problems?”

“Yes, I believe in God. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the Kirov detention center, I wasn’t allowed to read the Torah in the cell. Before that, I tried to devote the entire Sabbath to studying Holy Scriptures. But in the Kirov detention center, I have not had the opportunity, because I was told that prisoners, according to internal regulations, have the right to read only books from the prison library in their cells, books that have been vetted.

“In keeping with my complaint, they can commission a religious expert examination of the text, but I was told by the staff at the Federal Penitentiary Service that this would take a long time. I was advised to resolve the issue with the Torah when I got to the penal colony. But this is not some homemade book, it is a book from a synagogue!”

“Have you written complaints?”

“It is my impression that, in Russian prisons, complaints and even letters to and from relatives very often do not reach the addressee.”

“For example, when I was in the Penza Pre-Trial Detention Center, my complaints didn’t go anywhere, they were simply not sent. And even a letter from my grandmother, who congratulated me on my birthday, was destroyed by the staff at the detention center, because, according to my jailers, the letter contained a coded passage . . . The last letter I sent, from the Kirov detention center, I sent to my wife, who is both my public defender and representative at the ECtHR. I hope this letter is received. Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus, my wife cannot visit me, despite her status as my defender. In the Kirov detention center, there is basically no way to call relatives by phone, there is no FSIN-Pismo system for online correspondence, and when relatives and human rights defenders make inquiries by phone, prison officials usually tell them that they don’t have the right to disclose the ‘personal data’ of prisoners. Consequently, you are completely cut off from the world: no one knows where you are or what is happening to you. Please tell Mom that I’m well, and I will call her as soon as I am sent to the penal colony!”

Political prisoner Dmitry Pchelintsev will be transferred to a high-security colony in Kirov Region immediately after completing a twenty-one-day quarantine. In Kirov Region, there are five high-security penal colonies, and two of them are earmarked for first-time serious offenders. One of them is Correctional Colony No. 11 in Kirovo-Chepetsk, and the other is Correctional Colony No. 27 in the Verkhnekamsk District. This colony already has one political prisoner, Sergei Ozerov, who was convicted on charges of terrorism and sentenced to eight years in prison for involvement in Vyacheslav Maltsev’s “revolution” of 5 November 2017. The penal colony is located on the site of the former Stalinist prison camp Vyatlag.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Please read my previous posts on the Network Case (see the list, below), and go to Rupression.com to find out how you can show your solidarity with the defendants in the case.

#NetworkCase 

• “‘Please Tell Mom That I’m Well’: An Antifascist in the Vyatka Prison Castle,” 8 January 2021
• “David Frenkel: The Year 2020 in Pictures,” 1 January 2021
• “Three Years of Revenge (A Chronicle of the Network Case),” 20 October 2020
• “The Network Case Is Russia’s Disgrace,” 18 October 2020
• “18 Years in Prison for “Et Cetera” (Penza Network Case Appeals Hearing),” 3 September 2020
• “Jenya Kulakova: A Sunny Downpour,” 2 August 2020
• “Viktor Filinkov: The Big Picture,” 4 July 2020
• “We Can Dance If We Want To,” 22 June 2020
• “Come As You Are,” 21 June 2020
• “The Network Trial in Petersburg: Closing Statements by Defendants,” 18 June 2020
• “Parents Demand Release of Network Defendants Due to Coronavirus,” 1 April 2020
• “Pornofilmy, ‘This Will Pass,’” 1 March 2020
• “At the Network Trial in Petersburg,” 25 February 2020
• “Yevgenia Litvinova: Stop the Crackdown in Crimea,” 18 February 2020
• “The Network Case in Context,” 12 February 2020
• “86 Years in Prison for 7 Defendants in Network Case,” 10 February 2020
• “Two Network Case Defendants Married in Prison,” 29 January 2020
• “Viktor Filinkov: ‘It’s As If You Disappear—Only the Pain Remains,’” 21 January 2019
• “David Graeber on the Network Case,” 20 January 2020
• “‘My Statement Has Been Recorded Accurately (February 1–3, 2020),” 28 December 2019
• “18 Years in Prison for Being Tortured by the FSB,” 26 December 2019
• “The Second Anniversary,” 20 October 2019
• “‘Hi, I’m Married,’” 14 August 2019
• “Ivan Davydov: The New Greatness Trial,” 12 July 2019
• “Guided Tour of a Torture Chamber,” 11 July 2019
• “They Are Who They Are,” 10 June 2019
• “Vocalese (The Network Trials),” 6 June 2019
• “Yana Teplitskaya: Can Torture Be Endured?” 3 June 2019
• “The Network Trials: Pinning the ‘Code’ on the Defendants,” 22 May 2019
• “My Generation,” 6 May 2019
• “Lie Still, Bitch!” 26 April 2019
• “Crossing Jordan: Day Three of the Network Trial,” 17 April 2019
• “Network Trial Begins in Petersburg,”  9 April 2019
• “FSB May Haved Used Neo-Nazi Provocateur to Frame Network Suspects,” 1 February 2019
• “Jenya Kulakova: A New Year of Sorts,” 18 January 2019
• “No Amnesty for ‘Terrorists,’” 15 January 2019
• “Relentless Repression in Russia: Why Londoners Are Demonstrating on January 19,” 14 January 2019
• “Solo,” 12 January 2019
• “Convoyed,” 31 October 2018
• “How the FSB Tortures Detainees: Stories of the Victims,” 28 October 2018
• “No Justice, No Peace: Petersburg’s Kangaroo Courts Revisited,” 21 October 2018
• “Shakursky and Pchelintsev Indicted for Organizing ‘Terrorist Community,’” 11 September 2018
• “Arman Sagynbayev: I Was Tortured by the FSB,” 8 September 2018
• “Yana Teplitskaya: Wonderland,” 6 September 2018
• “Network: Parents versus the FSB,” 2 August 2018
• “Is Maxim Shulgin an ‘Extremist’?” 26 July 2018
• “Moscow City Court Affirms Anna Pavlikova’s Remand in Custody,” 26 July 2018
• “Is Lydia Bainova an ‘Extremist’?” 24 July 2018
• “Anna Pavlikova: Enemy of the Putinist State?” 22 July 2018
• “A Funny Thing Happened in Pryamukhino,” 20 July 2018
• “Two More Suspects Detained in Network Case,” 6 July 2018
• “Petersburg Court Bailiffs Attack Reporter at Network Case Hearing,” 20 June 2018
• “Anna Tereshkina: At the Court Hearing,” 20 June 2018
• “Nikolai Boyarshinov: I Hope One Day We Can Say the FSB Has Been Banned,” 12 June 2018
• “Lemmy Kilmister vs. Vladimir Putin,” 19 May 2018
• “Brazil,” 18 May 2018
• “This Is What Antifascism Looks Like,” 13 May 2018
• “May Day in Petersburg: ‘Your Torture Won’t Kill Our Ideas,’” 2 May 2018
• “Riot Cops Raid Punk Rock in Barnaul: ‘Freaks, Not Patriots,” 29 April 2018
• “Hug Your Son and We’ll Open Fire,” 27 April 2018
• “Denis Lebedev’s Suicide Note,” 26 April 2018
• “‘Are You a Bitch Yet?’ FSB Makes New Threats to Framed and Tortured Antifascist Viktor Filinkov,” 26 April 2018
• “Suicide Invoice,” 25 April 2018
• “Zoya Svetova: Interview with Petersburg Public Monitoring Commission Members Yana Teplitskaya and Yekaterina Kosarevskaya,” 23 April 2018
• “TV Party Tonight!” 21 April 2018
• “Valery Pshenichny: Tortured, Then Murdered,” 19 April 2018
• “They Are Not Terrorists! The Terrorists at the FSB Torture People,” 16 April 2018
• “FSB and NTV Pressure Mother of Man Accused in ‘Terrorist’ Frame-Up,” 12 April 2018
• “A New Face in Hell: Yuli Boyarshinov,” 12 April 2018
• “Wife of Tortured Antifascist Seeks Asylum in Finland,” 11 April 2018
• “The FSB’s Tall Tales,” 10 April 2018
• “Families of Penza-Petersburg Terrorists Form Committee,” 9 April 2018
• “Extremism Inside Out,” 30 March 2018
• “Search and Intimidate,” 29 March 2018
• “Solidarity? (The Case of the Penza and Petersburg Antifascists),” 24 March 2018
• “Anna Tereshkina: At Viktor Filinkov’s Remand Extension Hearing,” 23 March 2018
• “Ping, Ping, Ping: The Remand Extension Hearing of the Penza ‘Terrorists,’” 20 March 2018
• “Tortured Petersburg Antifascist Viktor Filinkov Transferred to Remand Prison in Leningrad Region,” 17 March 2018
• “Svyatoslav Rechkalov: ‘They Proceeded to Pull Down My Trousers, Threatening to Shock Me in the Groin,’” 15 March 2018
• “They Jump on Anything That Moves, Part 3: The Case of the New Greatness Movement,” 15 March 2018
• “The Horrorshow Continues: Svyatoslav Rechkalov Tortured in Moscow,” 15 March 2018
• “The Rowdies Have to Be Apprehended Legally, So We Can Have a Celebration in the City on March 18, not Bedlam,” 15 March 2018
• “Ilya Kapustin: ‘When the Stamp Thudded in My Passport, It Was Like a Huge Weight Had Been Lifted from My Shoulders,’” 13 March 2018
• “Your Husband Safely Made the Flight to Minsk after We Abducted Him in Petersburg,” 2 March 2018
• “‘FSB Officers Always Get Their Way!’” 28 February 2018
• ‘The Case of the Anarchists: Disappearances, Torture, Frame-Up (11 AM, February 15, 2018, Moscow),” 14 February 2018
• “The Strange Investigation of a Strange Subway Attack,” 12 February 2018
• “Arrested Penza Antifascists Talk about Torture in Remand Prison,” 10 February 2018
• “Solidarity with Persecuted Russian Antifascists and Anarchists in NYC and Minneapolis,” 7 February 2018
• “Ilya Kapustin: ‘They Said They Could Break My Legs and Dump Me in the Woods,’” 31 January 2018
• “The Penza ‘Terrorism’ Case,” 30 January 2018
• “Breaking Bad with the FSB,” 29 January 2018
• “How ‘Stability’ Has Really Been Achieved in Russia,” 29 January 2018