Medvedeva told Novaya Gazeta that her son was struck first by one man and then by several, and that the beatings followed his refusal to perform cleaning work. She said Shabanov buys gloves out of his own pension because contact with cleaning chemicals irritates the skin on his hands.
Shabanov holds the second disability group, a Russian classification for significant impairment, due to a severe spinal condition and progressive psoriasis. Medvedeva said the law exempts people in that category from work and allows them to work only if they choose to, but that this stopped applying after her son was transferred to the status of "obinyozhennye" — a prison caste of inmates at the bottom of the informal hierarchy.
"He is beaten for refusing. The first time one person beat him, the second time several, very hard," she said.
She believes the beatings are connected to Shabanov's complaints about conditions of detention. Her son does not tell her the details, she said, but after the beatings their phone calls lasted two to three minutes instead of the allotted 15 because he was in pain all over.
According to Novaya Gazeta Europe, in June fellow inmates began restricting Shabanov in daily life and threatening to beat him, citing his prison status. In early July, the supply manager of one of the units poured hot tea over the musician and hit him on the head with a stool, after which the attacker was himself sent to a punishment cell and stripped of his position, the outlet reported.
Shabanov has said he sent more than two hundred complaints to oversight bodies, the prosecutor's office and the public monitoring commission, without a positive result. According to his mother, the regional branch of the Federal Penitentiary Service found no violations of her son's rights and denies that prison castes exist.
In September, Shabanov wrote that he was in a state of despair and felt like an outcast. He called release through a prisoner exchange between Russia and Europe his last chance.
The saxophonist was sentenced to six years in a penal colony on charges of calling for terrorism and activity against the security of the state. The case was based on Facebook posts: investigators alleged the musician called for fighting the current authorities through financial support for the Ukrainian armed forces and sabotage. He did not admit guilt.
Dmitry Muratov, former editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, showed photographs of Russian political prisoners, including Shabanov, on CNN and urged Donald Trump's negotiators to ask Vladimir Putin to release political prisoners.