FSIN plans to toughen punishment for using mobile phones in prisons - newspaper
MOSCOW. Aug 7 (Interfax) - The Federal Service for the Enforcement of Punishments (FSIN) is now discussing a bill under which prisoners will get a tough punishment for using mobile phones, which may even involve criminal liability, Izvestiya reported on Tuesday.
"By law, all mobile phones are on the list of prohibited things. Violators who are found in possession of mobile phones now face up to ten days of solitary confinement. However, prisoners do not appear to be scared by this practice," a source in FSIN told the paper.
A tougher punishment for using mobile phones in prisons are needed to ensure disciple and order among prisoners in penal colonies, the source said. Prisoners often use mobile phones to discuss things with their accomplices and relatives outside prisons, guide their subordinates, and even commit crimes.
The source said FSIN is considering several measures of punishment for using mobile phones, from increasing punishment within the framework of the current legislation (increasing the period of solitary confinement, deprivation of visits, etc.) to the introduction of criminal liability. In the latter case, a prisoner found in possession of a mobile phone can get additional prison time, the source said.
Human rights activists, in turn, oppose a tougher punishment for using mobile phones in prisons, accusing FSIN of trying to impose an information blockade in penal colonies an d saying it will affect those prisoners who now report arbitrariness and violence in penal colonies.
"We get virtually all complaints by phone and the Internet and we have even set up a special hotline," Vladimir Osechkin, the head of the project Gulagu.net, told Izvestiya.
As a countermeasure, human rights activists propose to legalize mobile communications in penal institutions. An appropriate bill is now being discussed on the Open Government website.
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