Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service refuses to apologize for beating, raping, and forcing inmates to build cottages for some officials

Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) has refused to issue an apology to inmates at prisons and pretrial detention facilities in Orenburg, where prisoners have endured serious abuse by guards. In a letter to FSIN deputy director Valery Maximenko, Timur Rakhmatulin (who heads the Orenburg branch of the “Committee Against Torture”) asked for a formal apology to the abused inmates, after Maximenko personally apologized to Evgeny Makarov, an inmate tortured at a Yaroslavl prison.

In his letter, Rakhmatulin cited criminal charges against guards at a prison and detention center in Orenburg, where officials allegedly forced prisoners to build summer homes for them, while beating them and raping some inmates, leading to one man's death.

Rakhmatulin asked that the victims or their families receive written apologies from Sergey Porshin, the head of the FSIN’s Orenburg regional branch. Instead, Rakhmatulin got a response from the agency’s legal department stating that top officials aren’t required to apologize for the official misconduct of their subordinates.