About the project

Zona Prava is already providing legal and informational support to prisoners and criminal defendants. We are drafting amendments to laws governing jails and prison work colonies.

We are striving for transparency and humane conditions throughout the Russian justice system.

Two members of our team, Masha Alyokhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova, spent almost two years in Russian jails and prison colonies, from March 2012 to December 2013. They experienced the same kind of humiliations that prisoners are subjected to today, and they are passionate about addressing those problems.

Legal aid

• Legal defense and accompaniment through the process for prisoners whose lives are under threat due to unlawful actions taken by corrections officials, investigators, or judges
• Investigating cases of death in corrections facilities
• Legal consultation over a telephone hotline, and assistance to inmates in filing complaints
• Filing suit against jail and prison administrations on behalf of inmates
• When necessary, aid in filing suit with the European Court of Human Rights and seeing the process through

Informational support

• Collecting and disseminating information about human rights in jails and prison colonies
• Working with the media when prisoners' rights are violated. Publicizing court hearings and incidents in jails, prison colonies and police stations
• Interviewing inmates and those recently released, officials, relatives of inmates, rights defenders, lawyers, and members of public oversight commissions (POCs)
• Systematizing information about jails and prison colonies in all the regions of Russia, to make corrections facilities more transparent for all citizens