The new head of the Penitentiary Service needs to occupy prisoners with work - Eldar Zeynalov

Baku/11.07.23/Turan: By presidential order changes have been made in the leadership of the state agency that manages places of detention in Azerbaijan – the Penitentiary Service (PS). Major General of Justice Jeyhun Hasanov, who occupied the post of Deputy Minister of Justice, and at the same time head of the Penitentiary Service, has been dismissed. Prior to his appointment as the head of the PS, Hasanov worked as the head of the Main Police Department for Transport of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The reason for Hasanov's dismissal and his next position are not reported. Mirsaleh Seyidov, who previously held the position of head of the operational regime of the same department, was appointed the head of the PS.

The order was preceded by a collegial meeting at the Ministry of Justice, on July 7. At the meeting, Justice Minister Fikret Mammadov spoke about the tasks set by the president to eradicate corruption, increase transparency in the work of government agencies, compliance with ethical standards in the work of civil servants, improve the efficiency of court decisions, etc.

In an interview for Turan, the director of the Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan, Eldar Zeynalov, spoke about the tasks facing the new head of the Penitentiary Service (PS).

- What are the advantages of Mirsaleh Seyidov as a PS officer?

- We do not know where the former head of the Penitentiary Service will be appointed, so it is impossible to talk about his punishment for shortcomings. It is possible that this is just a personnel castling. But if it is planned to eliminate some long-standing shortcomings in the work of the PS and there is a personnel purge associated with it, then this appointment is more than appropriate.

Colonel of Justice Mirsaleh Seyidov has been in charge of operational work in the Penitentiary system since 2016, has a large agency and confidential information about the behavior of employees and the state of affairs in each prison. There is no doubt that the experience gained and the accumulated information will help the new boss.

In addition, he is from the Seyids, that is, according to Islamic concepts, he belongs to a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. It means a lot in our society. I know two Seyid officers in the Penitentiary system, and both of them, being heads of institutions, had a good reputation among prisoners as "strict but fair". Perhaps Seyid's ancestral roots will also help him to establish work with religious prisoners.

The new boss will have to solve the long–standing problems left in the "legacy" from his predecessor - Jeyhun Hasanov. In addition to a noticeable stratum of religious prisoners trying to propagandize radical ideas among criminals, there is also an unresolved problem of providing prisoners with work.

Since the discussions about the GULAG (the Main Directorate of camps and places of detention within the NKVD, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Justice of the USSR, which managed the places of detention), it has been customary for us to consider industrial production in prisons as an instrument of exploitation, humiliation, etc. No one bothered to ask how things are in the civilized world. Therefore, after the collapse of the USSR, during the ongoing reforms,  industrial zones were practically eliminated in the prisons. There was also its own logic: thousands of prisoners from other republics of the USSR returned to Azerbaijan, and they had to be placed somewhere. There was no money for the construction of new prisons, and some former industrial zones were converted into residential, i.e. to the new prisons. But even where industrial zones have remained, production is not established everywhere.

Although the employment of prisoners is provided for by the Penal Enforcement Code and, moreover, is considered one of the main methods of correction of convicts, in reality, only 10% of prisoners who are engaged in economic maintenance of a prison have permanent, full-time work. The rest loiter around all day and mooch off not only the state, but also of their families, who feed them.

It is clear that the holy place is never empty, and leisure time not occupied with work is filled with learning from other, more experienced criminals. Penitentiaries perceive the prison as a kind of "storage room", where a human "cargo" was handed over to them for the term of the sentence, which must be returned to the family. In fact, a person who has been imprisoned for the first time returns to society not reformed, but a spoiled idler, an antisocial element accustomed to mooching off  relatives. If he worked and could buy his children a school uniform, and his wife a new one for their wedding anniversary, he would not lose either self-respect or work skills.

- Why during the 30 years of the country's independence, no production facilities have been created in the PS with the involvement of prisoners' labor?

- On February 10, 2017, the decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan "On streamlining activities in the penitentiary sphere, humanizing the policy of punishment, as well as expanding the use of alternative types of punishment and procedural coercive measures not related to isolation from society" was issued. One of the 17 points of this document provided "in order to attract persons deprived of liberty to socially useful work, to study the possibilities of restoring existing production sites and creating new sites in penal institutions, to take measures to stimulate the participation of entrepreneurs in this activity." That is, it was envisaged to restore labor and attract private business to prison production. More than six years have passed, but they are still "exploring opportunities".

Prisoners of new  places of detention, which are planned to be created in rural regions, can be attracted to agricultural work familiar to them. Especially in those areas that do not arouse enthusiasm among "free" entrepreneurs, despite the calls of the authorities. It is clear that the labor products of prisoners who have housing, clothing, three meals a day and free treatment at the expense of the state will obviously cost less and will be competitive.

Nevertheless, nothing has been done to solve the problem of employment of people in places of detention. In my opinion, the only real problem in the execution of this part of the presidential decree is the golden rule of the bureaucracy: "If you can't do something, don't do it!". Perhaps the new head of the PS will be able to reverse this professional sabotage.