Rights in Russia4 Okt 2021

Human Rights in Russia week-ending 2 October 2021 - with Liudmila Alpern, an expert on the Russian prison system

This week our guest on the podcast is Liudmilla Ilyinichna Alpern. Liudmila Alpern is a prison researcher and observer. She used to work as deputy director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Reform and was head of the prison visiting programme. She has been a member of the Moscow Public Oversight Commission and is the author and developer of many prison projects, including a multi-year joint project by the Public Monitoring Commission, the Human Rights Ombudsman and the Council of Europe and the multi-year "Women in the Criminal Justice System" project that won the French Human Rights Award in 2003. Her publications include the book "Dream and reality of women's prisons" - a comparative analysis and history of women's prisons in Russia, Poland, Norway, USA and Spain.
Questions discussed in the podcast include: Becoming a human rights defender; The peculiarities of the Russian penitentiary system; The practice of torture; Comparing the penitentiary systems (prison conditions) in Russia and the USA; Special problems for prisoners in women's colonies; Governing penal colonies; Trends towards reform and improvements; The future of the Russian penitentiary system and human rights in general.

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: About 15 years ago in a secondhand bookstore in the city of Tomsk I bought the book ‘Dream and Reality of a Woman's Prison’. The author was Liudmila Alpern. I had been looking for this book for a long time, and it was only in Tomsk that I got lucky. It was a tough read, but I read the book. And then I responded to Valentina Cherevatenko's call whether anyone had Alpern's book about the women's penal colonies and gave this tome to Valentina. Some time later, I went to see Liudmila Alpern at the Centre for Criminal Justice Reform in Luchnikov Pereulok in Moscow. She told me very interestingly about her constructive cooperation with the head of the penal colony in Shakhovo, Afanasyev and the ‘chief gaoler of Orel’, Surovtsev, and about American prisons. Last week Simon Cosgrove and I spoke with Liudmila Alpern, an expert in her field. We discussed torture in Russian prisons today and prisons in the U.S., which Liudmila visited years ago. The podcast is available for listening and downloading on various platforms.

Simon Cosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(170)

Podcast Then & Now #42: Teresa Cherfas in conversation with Masha Slonim

Pictured: Masha Slonim28 May 2026Welcome to the 42nd edition of the Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa CherfasI’m one of thousands of Facebook followers of Russian-British journalist ...

2 Jun 43min

Podcast Then & Now #41: Teresa Cherfas in conversation with Ksenia Luchenko

8 May 2026by Teresa CherfasWelcome to the 41st edition of the Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. Ksenia Luchenko (pictured above) is the author of the book Благими Намерениям...

14 Mai 52min

Podcast Then & Now #40 [Part 2]: Teresa Cherfas in conversation with Tanya from Mariupol

20 March 2026by Teresa CherfasWelcome to the second part of the 40th edition of the Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas Today, we continue Tanya’s story from Mariupol. In the f...

24 Mar 1h

Podcast Then & Now #40 [Part 1] - Teresa Cherfas in conversation with Tanya from Mariupol

Welcome to the 40th edition of the Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa CherfasOur latest episode is devoted to the story of a grandmother from Mariupol, who left her home three days af...

16 Mar 1h

RiR Interview: Prosecuting Russian war crimes - with Bill Bowring and Steve Crawshaw

This month Mary Page’s guests to discuss Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and in particular the issue of prosecuting for war crimes and other human rights abuses committed by Russia in Ukraine, a...

27 Feb 50min

Podcast Then & Now #39 - Teresa Cherfas in conversation with Dmitry Oreshkin

Welcome to the 39th edition of the Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. Among the first guests on the podcast was Dmitry Oreshkin, the well-known political scientist. At that t...

13 Feb 1h 5min

Podcast Then & Now #38 - Teresa Cherfas in conversation with Mikhail Fishman

19 January 2026by Teresa CherfasWelcome to the 38th edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. My guest today, Mikhail Fishman, is known to viewers of the independent ...

21 Jan 43min

Podcast Then & Now #37: Teresa Cherfas in conversation with Maria Alekhina and Olga Borisova

3 December 2025by Teresa CherfasWelcome to the 37th edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas.Maria Alekhina, is a founding member of the Pussy Riot art collective. Pu...

4 Des 202550min