On September 29, in correctional colony No. 6 in Obukhovo, St. Petersburg, books by foreign writers were taken from inmates. According to Fontanka, foreign literature was collected both in the prison library and from the prisoners themselves; the Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service said that the colonies are undergoing a scheduled monthly inventory of the collections and inmates’ books.
According to a Fontanka source, the confiscated foreign literature was planned to be destroyed in a furnace. He claimed that the inmates were allowed to keep only the Bible and Russian classics.
The Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region said that the colonies are undergoing a scheduled monthly inventory of library collections and books belonging to inmates. The agency claims that the inspection is carried out in accordance with Russian law and the Federal List of Extremist Materials of the Ministry of Justice.
According to the press service, inspectors also make sure that the collections do not contain publications promoting a “cult of violence” and “criminal subculture”, as well as books with instructions for making prohibited items and substances.
The Federal Penitentiary Service claims that personal literature that is not included in the list of extremist materials but has not passed inspection is not destroyed. It is handed over to relatives or kept among the inmate’s belongings until release.
The agency said that only worn-out library books and publications from the federal extremist list may be destroyed. Works by foreign authors and Russian classics, according to the Federal Penitentiary Service, remain in the collections and are issued to inmates according to established rules.
At the beginning of September, Kommersant wrote that the Ministry of Digital Development is looking for a way to preserve in libraries and bookstores books by “foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations” that were published before they received such status. According to the ministry’s estimate, if the laws are applied literally, municipal libraries could lose up to 50–70% of their collections, and scientific libraries 10–15%.
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