LETTER FROM MUSTAFA JEMILEV
From Omsk Prison, September 5, 1975
•..As far as 1 am concerned, there have been no big changes. The doctors examined me on
August 18: pulse 57; temperature 95.9 degrees F. (35.5 C.); blood pressure 90/60; weight
99 pounds (45 kilos).
Considering that before the hunger strike 1 weighed 132 pounds (60 kilos), that means that l've lost an average of a little more than half a pound (250 grams) a day over sixty days. If you have a pencil you can figure out how long it will take me to get to zero at that rate. I'm joking.
They say they "don't let you die" around here. It seems to be true, because they took me to the hospital that very day and gave me shots of glucose and Bi, besides daily transfusions. On
August 26 they took me back to my cell in the basement, but they had to send me back to the infirmary on the first of September, because my stomach was in very bad shape. They kept me for four days, and today, September 5, I'm back in the basement.
The investigative bodies are not worried.
Another thing, on August 12 the following thing happened: Around two or three o'clock in the morning Lieutenant Colonel Surov came into my cell. He asked me if I was getting ready to give up my hunger strike. When I told him 1 hod no such intention, he started screaming at me. He said he knew what a good-for-nothing anti-Soviet I was and that I was pretty naive to think that a hunger strike was going to help me get out of prison. Then he inspected my cell and since he noticed that there was graffiti on the walls he ordered them to give me a brush and some lime to clean off the walls, even though the nature of the graffiti clearly showed that I had nothing to do with it and even though I could hardly stand up. "If he doesn't do it, punish him, " he told the guard. The punishment could consist of taking away the bed so I would have to lie on the wet cement floor.
When the guard out in the corridor told him that an arbitrary measure like that could provoke an act of desperation on my part, the director answered, "Let him hang himself, that would even be for the best." From this 1 learned that some people consider my suicide to be the most desirable way out.
But I have no intention of hanging myself and if one day they announce that I have hanged myself, you can be sure it's not true...•
TATARS AN