Monthly Archives: July 2018

Court Punishment for “Falsifying History”

On May 10, 2018, lawyers of the “Agora” international human rights group published a report in Russian compiled by Damir Gainutdinov and Pavel Chikov and entitled “Russia Against History. Punishment for Revision.” It discusses prosecutions against people in Russia accused of “falsifying history.” The study reviews 100 cases over the past 10 years that either directly or indirectly related to… Read More »

3 Years for Attending a Protest

In April 2018, the Chelyabinsk Regional Court passed a verdict against prisoners accused of organizing and participating in the 2012 protest against torture and inhuman treatment by the FSIN (Federal Penitentiary Service) officers, which was held in the correctional colony no. 6 (IK-6) in the town of Kopeisk.  On the roof of the barracks prisoners put placards “People,… Read More »

Terrifying Death of St. Petersburg Entrepreneur

On February 5, 2018, Valery Pshenichny, an entrepreneur who the Russian press calls the “Russian Elon Musk”, was found hanged in St. Petersburg’s pretrial detention facility SIZO-4. The official explanation was that he had committed suicide. But the autopsy showed that Pshenichny died of physical injuries. Forensic doctors found out that before his death Pshenichny was raped. Experts… Read More »

Secret Destruction of GULAG Records?

On June 8, 2018, Roman Romanov, Director of the Museum of the Gulag History (MGH) in Moscow, appealed to Mikhail Fedotov, Adviser to the Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chairman of the Human Rights Council (HRC). The appeal describes the destruction of registration cards of the prisoners of Stalin’s labor camps in the Russian archives in accordance with… Read More »

Rampant Torture in Russia’s Prisons

Reports from Russian pretrial prisons (SIZO) and corrective colonies, IK (labor camps) for convicts that are under responsibility of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN), which is subordinated to the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, show that due to the regime introduced in some of these incarceration facilities they have become places of constant torture. Very troubling… Read More »

In Russian-Occupied Crimea

On June 14, 2018, a citizen of Ukraine of Afghan origin, Kabir Mohammad, who was arrested in the annexed Crimea at the request of Iran instead of another person who is suspected of fraud, gave an interview. In February 2018, he fled to Ukraine after he spent a year in the pretrial detention facility SIZO-1 of the city… Read More »

Attempt to Destroy the International School of Sociology and Economy

On June 21, 2018 Russia’s Federal Education and Science Supervision Agency (Rosobrnadzor) announced that it has revoked the state accreditation of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, better known as “Shaninka,” after a planned inspection uncovered “multiple violations of education standards.” This School was founded in 1995 by Teodor Shanin (1930), Professor of Sociology at the… Read More »