Many detention centres in the Kharkiv region’s police stations have no water supplies, nor sewage system

The regional prosecutor’s office has found a huge number of infringements in the conditions for those detained or convicted in detention centres in the Izyumsk, Lozovsk and Kulyansk police stations.

This was reported by Oleh Handzya, head of the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office department  overseeing adherence to the law in carrying out court rulings in criminal cases, as well as when applying other coercive measures connected with restriction of liberty.

According to Oleh Handzya. The cells are not supplied with a system of video surveillance and there is insufficient natural lighting. The sewage systems and water supplies are either inadequate or not working, or there are simply none.  There are no fire alarms, the established norms of space per person are not observed. And in the Lozovsk and Kulyansk detention centres most of the inmates do not have their own sleeping place. In the Izyumsk centre they do not provide bed linen and mattresses, and here, as in Kulyansk, convicted prisoners are held together with people not convicted.

In addition, the prosecutor’s office has uncovered violations of the law with regard to holding people suffering from tuberculosis. In the Lozovsk SIZO the law “On pre-trial detention” is violated with inmates not been taken out for walks since the SIZO has no courtyard.

Handzya states that since the heads of these departments are ignoring the prosecutor’s office’s resolutions, the prosecutor’s office has sent a submission to the head of the Kharkiv region central department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.