Center for Civil Society International ([email protected])
Wed, 21 Oct 1998 21:42:01 -0700 (PDT)
Sender: [email protected] (Alex Goldfarb)
Subject: Scream from the House of the Dead
ANNOUNCEMENT
"Tuberculosis in Russian Prisons: Scream from the House of the Dead"
Photo Exhibit and Call for Action
WHERE:
Moscow, Hotel Radisson-Slavyanskaya,"Chaikovsky" Hall
WHEN:
Opening and press-conference -- 12:00 noon - 3 pm, October 27, 1997.
Accreditation is obligatory. Please contact the Moscow office of PHRI,
e-mail: <[email protected]>, tel 245-8613.
Open public access: October 28-29, 9 am to 6 pm
ORGANIZED BY:
--Public Health Research Institute of New York (PHRI)
--Medecins sans Frontieres, MSF - Belgium
--MERLIN - Medical Emergencies Relief International - UK
SPONSOR:
Open Society Institute (the Soros Foundation)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
We are grateful to Chief Administration of Execution of Punishment (GUIN)
of the Russian Ministry of Justice for cooperation.
SYNOPSIS:
The title of this project is derived from two great works of art and the
lives of their creators.
---Fyodor Dostoevsky - the author of "Notes from the House of the Dead" -
depicted Russian prisons from first hand experience. He died of TB.
---Edvard Munch painted "Scream" as a tribute to his mother and sister,
both victims of TB
<http://familiar.sph.umich.edu/mirror/www.cat.nyu.edu/fox/art/munch/scream.j
pg.html>
Russian photographer Sergei Gitman has visited dozens of prison hospitals
and specialized TB penal colonies across Russia and created a dramatic
"group portrait" of inhabitants of the "TB-Zone"... "In this project I
tried to reflect the despair of a convict destined to perish."
STATISTICS:
---100,000 people--one in ten inmates in the Russian prison system suffers
from active TB. 30,000 of them have the deadly multi-drug-resistant form.
5,000 people are expected to die this year. Many more will die next year
due to lack of food, heating and drugs caused by the economic crisis.
CALL FOR ACTION:
---$100 million--the amount that needs to be raised to combat TB in
Russia. To this end, an international campaign has been called for by the
three NGOs that organized the exhibit.
"The TB epidemic in Russian prisons is not just a far-away humanitarian
disaster. It is a threat to us all since the infection does not stop at
fences and borders," says Tine Demeulenaere of MSF. "After Moscow, we will
bring this exhibit to Europe and the USA. We need public support to win
the battle against TB."
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