The FPS, on the contrary, believe the chain is protecting Vasily Aleksanyan from attack.

In Thursday’s Novaya gazeta Alexander Sidorov, head of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FPS) press service, told readers why Vasily Aleksanyan was chained to his hospital bed: “You must not imagine that we always place a defendant under guard so that he doesn’t run away. Frequently a prisoner who is moved to hospital is defended against possible attack.”

Such a statement did not pass without comment.

Ludmila Alexeyeva, chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group

Now they simply do not know what to say in order to justify their actions. These are pathetic explanations. When someone is moved from prison to a civilian clinic he is put under guard and that is it. I think they still had not entirely given up hope of forcing this unfortunate man to give them testimony. I can find no other explanation for such bestial mistreatment.

Alexander Podrabinek, commentator for Novaya gazeta, spent 5.5 years in a Soviet labour camp for his book “Punitive Medicine” (1980) about the abuse of psychiatry in the USSR

If Aleksanyan faced the threat of attack he would need not to be chained to his bed but, on the contrary, given greater freedom so that he might defend himself or get away. Evidently, he is being chained up so that he cannot get off the ward. This is, naturally, a form of restraint. As a rule, such measures are applied to those whose case files are marked, in the jargon, by a “red stripe”, i.e. that so-and-so has previously made attempts to escape.

Aleksanyan, however, is in such a condition that it is quite unnecessary to chain him up.

Their vigilance exceeds all bounds. With regard to Yukos the authorities adopt extreme measures of caution and security, and the prison sentences are also excessive. Obviously, such an order was issued, or such an approach has been adopted, and all now understand what is required of them.

Arseny Roginsky, chairman of the international Memorial society

The explanation offered by an FPS spokesman seems both artificial and hypocritical. Chaining a sick man to his hospital bed excessive cruelty.
Probably the prison service man has never been sick himself and has no idea what it means to add to a sick man’s suffering in this way. Any form of chaining or handcuffing is a degrading and cruel form of punishment: to apply it to a sick man is, of course, sadistic.

Yelena Lvova, Vasily Aleksanyan’s lawyer

Who on earth could attack him there? He has a 24-hour guard. What good is a chain in those circumstances?! If he is chained to his bed it will be harder to move him off the ward, is that it? I cannot understand the logic.

Now the chain is a thing of the past. It seems as though the prosecutor has been making visits to the hospital — he did not go to see Aleksanyan, it’s true man from — and checked on the conditions in which our client is being held. Since then the fetters have been removed from Vasily Aleksanyan. Yesterday we found him in a rather more cheerful condition: for the last two weeks it has been an outrageous business. He could reach no further than his bedside cupboard.