Death in a Punishment Cell (SHIZO)

Illustrative photo

Legal qualification:

Article 7(1)(f) of the Rome Statute: Torture (creating inhuman conditions of detention).

Article 7(1)(k): Other inhumane acts (deliberate denial of medical care leading to death).

K.M., a 62-year-old community activist from a small town in the Grodno region, was a man of unbreakable will. All his life he fought for the Belarusian language and culture. In 2021, he was sentenced to 5 years in a penal colony on an absurd charge of “creating an extremist formation” — he was the administrator of a local historical Telegram chat.

K.M. had serious health issues: type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. He needed regular medication and a special diet.

In the colony he immediately became a target for the administration. He refused to write a clemency petition, spoke pointedly in Belarusian with inspectors, and demanded that his rights be respected — this enraged them. They began to “pressure” him.

The mechanism was well-practiced: he was sent to SHIZO (punishment cell) for any fabricated reason. “Failed to button the top button of his uniform” — 10 days in SHIZO. “Did not greet an officer” — another 10 days. “Lay down on the bunk during the day” (although he felt sick from heart problems) — 15 days.

SHIZO in a Belarusian colony is a concrete box two by three meters. During the day, the bunk is chained to the wall, and one may sit only on a small stool. The cell is cold, often intentionally left with an open window in winter. Instead of normal food — watery gruel and boiling water.

For K.M. this was a death sentence. In SHIZO he was forbidden to have personal belongings, including the vital medicines — insulin and blood-pressure pills.

“He wrote to us while his letters still got through,” his daughter said. “ ‘They want to rot me here. No walks. The doctor gives medicine irregularly, and in SHIZO doesn’t give it at all. Blood pressure 200/120. Sugar spikes.’ We filed complaints. We begged the colony chief, the prosecutor — ‘You are killing him!’ They replied that ‘the inmate’s health condition is satisfactory, he does not require treatment in SHIZO.’ ”

In six months, K.M. spent a total of 90 days in SHIZO. The last time he was put there for 20 days for “not shaving.”

A week after this transfer, at five in the morning, the phone rang in his daughter’s apartment. “Your father, K.M., died at 4:30. Cause — acute heart failure. Come for the body.”

When the daughter and her husband arrived at the colony morgue, they were given the body in a sealed bag. They demanded it be opened. “We didn’t recognize him,” she said. “It was a dried-out old man. He had lost about 30 kilos. His face was ashen. His hands were covered with dark spots resembling bruises. There was an abrasion on his head, clumsily covered with makeup.”

The official death report stated that he died “as a result of a chronic condition worsening.” Not a word about SHIZO, not a word about denial of medical care.

“It wasn’t a worsening. It was murder,” his daughter said at the funeral. “They tortured him with cold, hunger, and deprivation of medicine. They knew he had heart disease and diabetes. They knew he wouldn’t survive in a concrete punishment cell without medication. They were simply waiting for it to happen. And it did.”

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