Russian non-governmental movement For Human Rights compares the current prison system to the infamous gulags of the Soviet Union, Radio Liberty reported on Friday. The rights group is calling for new legislation allowing public oversight of detention facilities. The activists are also calling for the dismissal of the country's top prison official.

For Human Rights says its report is based on the monitoring of prisons in some 40 out of Russia's 89 regions.

In an interview with RFE/RL, the group's executive director, Lev Ponomaryov, compares the situation in the country's jails to the Soviet-era gulag system and draws a parallel to one of the most infamous prisoner abuse cases in recent history.

Ponomaryov alleges that the policy at Russia's prisons is increasingly to make the punishments more severe to morally and physically crush each convict. He charges that inmates are regularly humiliated and subjected to cruel treatment for no reason. "Now the prison officials as a rule refuse to allow civil rights workers to visit with prisoners, particularly when there has been a crisis."

Ponomaryov says the mistreatment of prisoners became worse after new heads of prisons were appointed and given revised orders on how to deal with inmates.