Viktoryia Kulsha was freed with a neck cast: "Fractured vertebrae are the result of physical violence in the colony"
Viktoryia Kulsha was released with other political prisoners on December 13 last year with a severe injury – a fracture of two cervical vertebrae, which she sustained in women's correctional colony No. 24 (Zarechye). Due to the necessity of wearing a plaster corset, the woman avoided cameras immediately after crossing the border, and she was brought to the exchange directly from the medical unit of the Homiel colony, where she had been admitted after an urgent hospitalization. "Novaya Gazeta Europa" asked Viktoryia what happened to her.
Viktoryia Kulsha free in Switzerland. Photo: Volha Klaskouskaya / "Novy Chas"
When the buses with 109 political prisoner passengers crossed the Ukrainian border, the final destination was a military hospital in Chernihiv region. Viktoryia immediately asked the medics to remove her cast, the publication writes.
But Ukrainian doctors refused: without MRI and CT scan results, they could not take on such responsibility. And so Viktoryia asked her wardmates to help her.
With scissors, together, piece by piece, they managed to cut, break, and chisel away the plaster corset.
Viktoryia simply didn't want to be seen in that condition.
She is currently undergoing treatment in Poland.
— The fractured vertebrae are not the result of a beating. But they are the result of physical violence in the colony. I cannot disclose other details yet. But if you want to know if I was subjected to beatings and physical violence throughout all five plus years behind bars – yes, I was. And not just once. And not just me.
According to her, not only political prisoners are beaten, and not only by administration staff. Convicts themselves also enjoy settling scores with their squad mates.
— The 68-year-old political prisoner Alena Hnauk was not beaten by staff. But she was beaten by women from the squad, she says.
The convicts did not touch her. But the staff beat her.
— If I had fallen, they would have finished me off with kicks, she says.
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