Major riot in a Russia prison (1200 people) in Irkutsk. Prison burned down, inmates are shot with machine guns (300 special forces inside) and those who are inside cut their veins. zekovnet.ru/ik-15-irkutska…
Video of the burning prison camp
Police blocked 5 km radius around prison camp. I talked to those familiar with the situation there and they said that in that prison guards regularly beat and tortured inmates and conflict started after another such incident.
Folks inside are saying that they have hundreds of wounded
Video from inmates inside. According to them 2 people dead, they locked themselves in the prison factory and are asking for help.
Another audio from insides. They are claiming that OMON ( police special forces ) burned the prison. The road from the prison camp to Irkutsk is closed now.
According to a local newspaper at least one prison guard is wounded and the ones who started the riot are 1) 32 years old, 3 years prison sentences for robbery (161) and 2) 41 years old, 13 years prison sentence for trying to kill a policeman (317) 
Pictures from inside the burning prison camp in Angarsk
Another video from inside with wounded (who cut their veins): “we did everything we could do (self harm in protest), now police will get us and there is nothing else we could do. We are asking you to help us ! But letting more people know what is going on here”
I have a (forthcoming) book on politics of prisons in former Soviet Union and prison riots .. it is true that at that point ( after cutting veins, and starting a riot) inmates could not do anything else and they are basically sitting ducks :(
According to inmates 800 people are participating in the riot ( those who did not participate are in a separate barrack). Looks like firefighter managed to stop the fire in the prison factory. Wounded are being moved somewhere ( not clear where )
Inmates say that the riot started because of this guy- he was beaten and chocked by prison guards last night and it was the last drop for everyone in that prison camp. Such events happend there regularly.
Pictures from inside the prison camp
Important video- very begining if the riot. Police Special Operation forces are entering prison camp and open automatic fire. You could also hear explosions ...
Everything in this prison happend as I predicted 2 weeks ago. 31 March prison authorities put prison on lockdown due to #COVID19, stopping all families and human rights organizations visits. Great opportunity for more abuses and torture :( foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/01/pri…
According to Russian law enforcement they are at least partially in control of the prison now... Also one inmate hanged himself on the prison doors :’(
I want to make it clear that, working with prisons for last 4 years,I am sure it is only beginning. Last week- a major riot of ISIS inmates in Syria, now Russia..situation is bad in prisons in non democratic countries and now with #COVID inmates have nothing to lose and will act!
Russian Correction Authorities already announced that they opened lawsuits against inmates (but not prison guards who did the torture). This is not a sustainable way of fixing a problem. When inmates start riots - they have absolutely nothing to lose and will go till the end :(
Police Special Operations Forces storming prison camp
Official video of Russian Law enforcement
Looks like riot is over and police is controlling prison camp
In case u missed it, I want to highlight that on the video of police storming the prison one could clearly hear words “Takbir” and “Allahu Akbar”. I am not sure about this prison yet, but there could be an Islamist jamaat inside (they exist in almost all prison in Russia).
I talked to inmates in several different prisons and they said that over the last half a year situation is getting worse- new prison administration (from FSB instead of Department of Corrections) and searchers to confiscate phones (they want information not to get out).
Interesting info: In March 2020 a new director of department of corrections in Irkutsk was appointed. Before taking this position he was in charge of prisons in Bryansk-region famous for torture and where previous major bloody prison riot took place. sibreal.org/a/30546666.html
Here is more about prison camp director... basically all prisons he worked in before had beating/torture/abuse problems but instead of being fired/arrested he was always promoted. Welcome to Russia :(
Even this is not the end of the prison riot story. Now (it is night in Russia), Russian government blocked several human rights organizations websites where there were report from inspections of different prisons published.
When riot started inmates called government human right ombudsman in the region (whose job is to monitor prisons)-he accused them of having prohibited cell phones! Now he is not reachable. This is all u need to know about official puppet human rights organizations in Russia :(
Although website of nongovernment human rights organization is still down there is access to some old complains. For example Muslim inmates as far as in 2015 complained that prison guards burned Quran and beat them when they pray (it happens relatively often in prisons in Russia)
There is info that the person who was hanged was in fact killed by inmates. 36 years old male worked for administration and did dirty job for them- beating and torturing (this is very common in such prisons- reduces guard work and they could make those inmates scapegoats).
Video of the beating of inmates after police took control of the prison camp
Apparently there is a potentially serious new development. One of the guys who started riot is Chechen in prison for 13 years for trying to kill law enforcement officer ...
Here are pictures from the prison, morning after the riot
Here are more pictures from the prison, morning after the riot
Video from the prison after the riot ( from 0:11) You could see armored vehicles and inmates laying on the ground facebook.com/10000071312700…
