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  • It's minus 15 degrees Celsius, and Herman has been on his feet since 6 a.m. He's one of dozens of people waiting to give parcels to the inmates of the Sahara Ova Detention center.

  • Herman is here for his flatmate, Svitlana Tsvetkova.

  • She was sentenced to five days for participating in anti government protests in Moscow.

  • Way we've collected warm clothes.

  • Here's a sweater on a blanket because you don't even know if our friends have anything to cover up with socks, underwear, T shirts on gloves, just in case.

  • The whole thing is just terrible.

  • It's even brought me to tears.

  • Those are my friends in there.

  • Over 7000 people have been arrested since the protests began.

  • The police have been especially brutal in Moscow and ST Petersburg.

  • They've even taken people away who had nothing to do with the protests just because they happen to be in the area.

  • This'll group of young people had to sit in a freezing police van for seven hours.

  • They were told there wasn't enough space in the jails for them.

  • These images show conditions in the Sahara Rove, a detention center near Moscow, overcrowded cells, inmates having to share the bare metal beds.

  • There's an open latrine right there in the room.

  • Herman's flatmate, Svetlana Tsvetkova, also had to endure these conditions.

  • After five days, Svetlana is released.

  • She's relieved to be back at home with Herman in their kitchen way.

  • She says she wasn't able to contact the outside world during her incarceration and was overjoyed to receive Herman's parcel.

  • Way suspected Our friends were standing behind the fence way worried about them way thought there might be worse off than we were A t least.

  • We were inside and not out in the cold.

  • Exactly.

  • I mean, it's the thought that Herman was there looking out for me.

  • Helped a lot.

  • She shows us a video from when she was arrested.

  • She and other protesters were standing in front of the jail where opposition activists Alexi Navalny was being detained.

  • The police surrounded them and arrested them.

  • One by one, someone I'm close.

  • Thio, who might care for, was kidnapped.

  • Even if the arrest had a legal basis, it was totally unacceptable from a humanitarian viewpoint.

  • We're law abiding citizens way, respect our constitution.

  • We're not doing anything that's prohibited, and suddenly this happens on top of that we're told.

  • It's right.

  • No, it's wrong, simply awful.

  • Svitlana tells us she didn't get anything to eat for the first three days after her arrest because she was taken from one police station to the next and nobody felt responsible.

  • She was so tense the whole time that she's on.

  • Lee just begun to realize how inhumane the situation Waas she chess.

  • At first I thought I would leave the jail and forget everything.

  • But now I'm becoming aware of things.

  • In retrospect, I'm wondering why we were treated with so little respect.

  • And I keep thinking about how inhumane this whole system is.

  • Just like many other protesters, Herman and Svitlana did not take to the streets on Lee because Navalny was arrested.

  • They were demonstrating against the current political system or generally way young people have toe have a different Russia to live in Russia, where we have the freedom to decide our own futures thing system.

  • Why the powerful rake in the cash and then tried to tell us how to behave?

  • This system is wrong.

  • Um, you said in your private channel.

  • Many of the Sahara over detainees have now been released, and they think much the same way.

It's minus 15 degrees Celsius, and Herman has been on his feet since 6 a.m. He's one of dozens of people waiting to give parcels to the inmates of the Sahara Ova Detention center.

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