“I am a devoted Muslim, and I profess traditional Islam. My mother was a victim of a terrorist attack. How could I ever support or promote terrorism? I only wanted to help Muslim African countries that have almost no drinking water. That was my only intention.”

-Georgy Guyev during his trial on Nov 20, 2020

Georgy Guyev, a Muslim native of North Ossetia, moved to Moscow when he was a teenager. After graduating from high school, Georgy was accepted to the Plekhanov University of Economics, one of Russia’s most prestigious universities. As he was finishing his degree, he started working for a major auditing company KPMG and then was recruited as lead economist in Promstroi construction company. Georgy is married and has two children.

Case background

Ever since Georgy was a student, he has been involved in charity work and devoted himself to helping people in struggling Muslim communities both in Russia and abroad. His family describes him as a man with a kind heart who always puts others first.

In May 2019, one of Georgy’s friends shared with him a donation link from the Living Hearts Charitable Fund website, that claimed it was collecting money to build schools, provide water, and food for vulnerable Muslim communities in Africa. Feeling moved to help the cause, Georgy transferred a small amount of money to the account provided on the website. Shortly thereafter, Guyev was arrested and charged with financing terrorism under Art. 205.1, Part 1, of the Russian Criminal Code. The police took Georgy to an unknown location and refused to disclose any information regarding his whereabouts or condition to his family.

Two days after the arrest Guyev’s family was able to find out that Georgy was held at detention center, charged with  “[transferring] at least $680,000 to the ISIS terrorist organization, and specifically, to a convicted terrorist Abu Umar Sasitlinsky, to finance the preparation and commission of terrorist crimes as well as to support the armed struggle in Syria.”

As evidence, the state cited the testimony of Anna Papushina, who was an accountant in the foundation to which Georgy transferred money. Papushina claimed the foundation collected money to support the Jihad, and that Guyev knew about the foundation’s true intentions from Telegram chats of the fund of which he was a member. Guyev claimed he was never a member of such chats, and the investigation did not prove otherwise. Moreover, the Memorial Human Rights Center believes Papushina was coerced into providing this false testimony after being threatened by police to be jailed for decades if she refused to cooperate. Papushina was placed under house arrest, while Guyev, who has denied all accusations, has now been held in a detention center for over a year.

Guyev told the investigation that he looked into the background of the Living Heart Foundation, and that donations made by Ramzan Kadyrov (leader of Chechnya) and Yunus-Bek Yevkurov (former head of Ingushetia), instilled confidence into Georgy that he was donating his money to a good cause. Guyev added:

“The site indicated the number of accounts to which I could send the money, so I transferred a small amount. I have never supported terrorism, and I am very critical of violent forms of Islam. My mother was a victim of a terrorist attack. How could I possibly support it?”

Georgy’s wife Madina commented on the accusations in her interviews with journalists:

“There has never been any fundraising and financing of terrorism. Those are all far-fetched accusations that are easy to refute. At the beginning of Ramadan, my husband transferred a small amount to a publicly available bank account to help Muslim African countries. We know nothing about Abu Umar Sasitlinsky, especially that he is a convicted terrorist.”

Madina has also denied the police’s claim that they have confiscated extremist terrorist literature, a “large number” of bank cards, and phones with “instructions from ISIS”.

“This is all untrue. They only confiscated a laptop and our phones. We never had any literature of that kind in our home, or multiple bank cards, or terrorist instructions. This is ridiculous.”

After Guyev’s legal defense team submitted an appeal, which asserted that Georgy never was in possession nor had the means to donate the $680,000 USD the court accused him of donating, the prosecution changed the donation amount to just $94 USD.

Besides the testimony of Anna Papushina, the police used Guyev’s telegram chats as evidence of his supposed crimes. One such chat is Georgy’s conversation with a user named Alikhan Horanti, whom Georgy told about an acquaintance of his who converted to Islam. The chat with Horanti also discussed setting up financial assistance of $40-$70 to Imams, since “many of them are forced to work at gas stations and as taxi drivers to feed their families.” In the protocol of the examination of this correspondence, the leading police officer on the case claimed that this dialogue “was encrypted and talked about the recruitment of persons who converted to Islam for terrorist purposes and about financing terrorism.”

On November 20, 2020, the court sentenced Georgy to six years of prison.

Why does the Memorial Center recognize Georgy Guyev as a political prisoner?

The Center believes that Guyev’s guilt was not proven:

1. Texting about providing financial assistance to Imams is not an indication of adherence to violent forms of Islam or support of terrorism.
2. Guyev transferred money to the account of the Living Hearts Charitable Fund, an organization that seemed transparent regarding their activities and clearly stated that its purposes are to provide aid to vulnerable civilians. No proof was established as to whether the fund was using the donations to finance terrorism.
3. The investigation could not prove that Guyev was part of Telegram chats that discussed donations being funneled to support terrorism.
4. Anna Papushina, the fund’s accountant and pillar upon which the prosecution relied to convict Guyev, was forced to collaborate with the police to avoid cruel punishment and false imprisonment.

The Memorial Human Rights Center believes that Guyev’s imprisonment was politically motivated and carried out in order to artificially increase statistics in resolving terrorist crimes, as well as for the Russian police to demonstrate their success to their superiors. The Memorial Center Georgy Guyev to be released immediately, and all charges against him are dropped.

Everyone is guaranteed freedom of thought and speech; the right to freely seek, receive, produce and disseminate information in any legal way; freedom of the media is guaranteed; censorship is prohibited.
Article 29 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation

Case Background

Darya Polyudova is a civic activist and a leader in the Left Resistance public movement.

Born in Uzbekistan, Darya moved with her family to Bashkiriya, Russia as a teenager.

Thinking back on their adjustment to Bashkiriya, Darya’s mother Tatyana recalls the city’s horrendous weather. “There were snowstorms in Bashkiriya in winter,” Tatyana remembers. “She [Darya] would come to the bus stop to go to her music classes, and I would say ‘Maybe you shouldn’t go, it’s freezing.’ She would say ‘No, I must go no matter what.’

She has been remarkably stubborn ever since she was a child. She always speaks her mind. Sometimes it is safer to remain silent, but she would spill everything out with no hesitation. She will fight for her truth until the end.”

After graduating from high school, Darya moved to the Krasnodar Krai in the south of Russia to attend the Ministry of Internal Affairs University. She wanted to become an investigator. During college, she joined the Communist Party of the Russian Federation during her third year of college, but soon realized how broken the system was, and that the party, in fact, did not care about the people, as it claimed.

Her strong sense of justice and urge to support those in need, especially in times of blatant injustice, brought Darya to the streets where she staged solitary pickets, holding home-made posters and voicing her criticism of Putin’s regime. These actions have resulted in numerous administrative arrests and even threats to expel her from the university.

Darya came out to the streets to support the Russian opposition during mass protests against falsified elections in 2011. In 2012, she came out to show solidarity with Pussy Riot activists imprisoned for their non-violent musical performance against Putin’s regime. Darya was vocal about her opposition to Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, most notably his illegal invasion of Crimea, and in her support for Crimean Tatars and other Ukrainian political prisoners. Her criticism of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and her public fight for human rights have made Darya a target of political persecution by government authorities.

In 2014, the police raided Darya’s house and arrested her on charges of inciting separatism and extremism. The official evidence cited for her arrest was her plan to organize a “March for the Federalization of Kuban” (a southern Russian region) and carrying of a poster at a protest shortly after Putin’s annexation of Crimea with words “Not a War in Ukraine but a Revolution in Russia!” Darya was sentenced to two years in prison. The Memorial Human Rights Center declared her a political prisoner in 2014. Tragically, six years later, she again was jailed by the Kremlin for her dissent, leading the Memorial Center to have to declare her a political prisoner again.

The Case of 2020

After her release from prison in 2017, Darya continued her peaceful civic activism, refusing to be bullied into silence by the Kremlin’s immoral and illegal repressions. In January 2019, Darya staged a one-person picket in Moscow holding a poster that read: ‘Hey, Kuril Islanders! Stop feeding Moscow! Long live the Far Eastern Republic!’ Her protests advanced the position that the residents of these islands should hold a legal referendum on withdrawing from the Russian Federation. On her page on the Vkontakte social network, she wrote that it could benefit Russia to be divided into several sovereign countries.

Based on her solitary pickets and online activity, the Russian government claimed that Polyudova was calling for armed separatism.  However, the incident the government used as pretext for her arrest  was a February 2017 repost of someone else’s’ publication on a Russian social media platform VKontakte. The content she reposted included a photo of the militant Shamil Basayev and the inscription ‘when we demanded a referendum, the Russians came and killed everyone who did not have time to hide.’ Darya did not accompany this repost with her own commentary, yet the authorities deemed this post enough to accuse Polyudova of publicly defending terrorism.

In January 2020, the FSB once again raided Darya’s house and initiated criminal proceedings against her under Part 1 of Article 280.1 of the Russian Criminal Code for “public incitement of separatism,” and Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Russian Criminal Code for “public justification of terrorism.” In mid-January, Darya was arrested, brought to a detention center, and denied her right to see her mother. After already having spent a year and a half in detention, Darya was sentenced to six years of increased security prison on May 31, 2021.

Why does Memorial consider Polyudova a political prisoner?

1.         Polyudova’s imprisonment violates her constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of speech.

The Memorial Center believes that Article 280.1 of the Russian Criminal Code must be repealed. The Center asserts that the state only has the right to criminalize manifestations of separatism that are violent in nature or promote violent actions. It certainly does not have the right to arrest those who engage theoretical deliberations about the possibility of separation. Darya Polyudova did not in any way urge the residents of Kuril Islands to take part in an armed struggle for independence. In advocating a peaceful legal referendum, she merely expressed her point of view, which she has a lawful right to do according to the Russian Constitution—a document that guarantees freedom of speech. Additionally, the criminalization of calls for a public referendum, even one on a controversial question l, contradicts the basic principles of popular sovereignty, and Russian statehood enshrined in the Constitution.

2.         Facebook repost is not adequate grounds for imprisonment

 The charges that Darya faces under Part 2 of Article 205.2 (accusing her of justifying terrorism by reposting someone else’s publication) are far-fetched and unreasonable. Addendum 1 to Article 205.2 defines a public justification of terrorism as a ‘public statement recognizing the ideology and practice of terrorism as correct, and in need of support and emulation. Darya’s repost did not endorse terrorist practices or affirm the need to support terrorism. Indeed, to claim that it does necessitates an excessively broad misreading of the repost that is intentionally unfavorable to Darya. Polyudova’s defense lawyers stated: “These accusations are very convenient [for the government]. The investigation finds a linguist who will determine the hidden meaning of the message. That’s it. Now you can include the linguist’s conclusion in the case and cite their words. This is how the police artificially increases the statistics of the cases related to terrorism to prove their success to their bosses.”

Moreover, Darya’s actions pose no real danger to the public. In March 2020, her repost had 60 views, including views by the staff of Memorial Center and the FSB. Not a single like or comment was made on the post. The Center believes that despite the obvious ambiguity and controversy of the repost made by Polyudova, her actions are certainly not sufficient to accuse her of defending and promoting terrorism.

The Memorial Center concludes that Darya’s detention is politically motivated and directly connected to her social and political activities. Darya is a consistent critic of the Russian political leadership and actively opposes the war with Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and political repression. Thus, the Center believes that these opposition beliefs and activities are the real reasons Darya is now serving her second sentence in prison. The Center demands that all charges against Polyudova are dropped immediately and she is released from prison without delay.

Emil Ziyadinov, a Muslim Crimean Tatar, led a modest life in his small hometown of Oktyabrskoye in Crimea. For years, he worked as a sports coach and just recently completed specialized education necessary to become a certified electrician. He is married and is a doting father to four little boys.

After Russia illegally invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, the Kremlin unleashed a massive wave of political repressions targeting Muslim Crimean Tatars, many of whom are members of the non-violent religious and political organization Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT). The Kremlin views the Crimean Tatars as a threat due to their vocal opposition and criticism of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea. Resultantly, they are continuously attacked by the Kremlin for their ethnicity and religious beliefs.

Emil Ziyadinov, like many Crimean Tatars and devout Muslims, was not willing to stand idly by while others were being unlawfully arrested, interrogated, and thrown in prison. He joined the Crimean Solidarity civic initiative and started attending political trials, providing care packages with basic necessities to the imprisoned, helping their families get crucial financial and psychological support, and staging solitary pickets to express his solidarity with those in prison.

Tragically, yet unsurprisingly, last year the Russian government came for Emil as well. On July 7, 2020, several masked men brandishing machine guns stormed Emil’s home and hauled him away as his four young children were watching.

Mr. Ziyadinov is accused of organizing and leading a cell of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has been unlawfully designated a terrorist organization in Russia, Under Article 205.5, Part 1, of the Russian Criminal Code. Additionally, under Article 30, Part 1, in association with Article 278, Emil was charged with preparing a seizure of power. The Investigative Committee justified this charge based on the goal of Hizb ut-Tahrir to create a worldwide Islamic Caliphate, uniting all Muslims around the world. Emil Ziyadinov remains in illegal captivity hundreds of miles away from home to this day.

Case Background

The Memorial Human Rights Center believes that the Kremlin’s designation of Hizb ut-Tahrir as a terrorist organization is illegal and baseless. HT’s members in Russia have never promoted violence or organized a single terrorist act. Nevertheless, because of their connection to this organization, Muslim Crimean Tatars are interrogated, their houses are bugged by the police, they face terrifying house raids and are thrown in prison with no corpus delicti.

In 2013, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ruled that its security officers were no longer required to prove that someone has participated in the organizing or plotting of terrorist acts to accuse them of committing a crime. Such a simplified investigation process allows the Russian police to artificially increase criminal case statistics to show their seemingly-efficient performance in preventing terrorism to the higher authorities.

In the case of Emil Ziyadinov, the police used secret audio recordings and the testimony of an anonymous witness to accuse Ziyadinov of terrorism. The Memorial Center has studied the ‘evidence’ in this case and found it seriously lacking in substance. The assessment of the audio recordings by the ‘experts,’ who remain unidentified by the investigation, claims that Ziyadinov was acting as ‘a mentor’ while someone in the recording, also unidentified, supposedly acted as ‘a student.’ The only supposed wrong doing that these tapes purport to demonstrate is that the two men read the “texts from the ideological sources of Hizb ut-Tahrir” and discussed them. Additionally, the investigation cites Emil’s solitary picket in 2018 as evidence of his ‘harmful activity.’ During this peaceful picket, Emil simply came out to the streets of his hometown holding a poster saying “Muslims are not terrorists.” According to investigators, everything mentioned above constitutes ‘terrorist activities.’

Why the Memorial Center recognizes Emil Ziyadinov as a political prisoner?

1.          Emil Ziyadinov is being prosecuted with no corpus delicti.

The Investigative Committee accusing Emil tries to substantiate the accusations of terrorism, separatism, extremism, and the seizure of power by citing as evidence the meetings of believers, discussions of religious topics, and reading Islamic literature. Indeed, this is their sole evidence of ‘harmful’ actions. Such justifications include the description of dissemination of knowledge, the formation of “tendentious” thinking among believers, participation in meetings, reading relevant literature, and watching religion-themed films to prove terrorist intent. Yet, none of these actions are crimes. Moreover, every activity listed above, along with the right to freedom of religion, are declared in Article 28 of the Russian Constitution as basic human rights.

Thus, Emil’s non-violent activities, that demonstrate no signs of terrorism, must be perceived as completely legal under Russian law.

2.          Given the conditions of annexed Crimea, any prosecution brought by the Russian State, let alone the unjustified persecution of the Crimean Tatars, is illegal.

According to Amnesty International, post-annexation Crimea is officially an occupied territory per international humanitarian law. In this case, Russia, as an occupier, has no right, under any circumstances, to eliminate the previously existing system of government and its criminal legislation. Under Ukrainian law, Hizb ut-Tahrir is a legal organization. Thus, the Russian government violates international law by illegally prosecuting Muslim Crimean Tatars.

The Memorial Human Rights Center demands that Emil Ziyadinov is released immediately, all charges against him are dropped, and the political persecution against Muslim Crimean Tatars is terminated once and for all.

On September 6, 2020, Salman Tepsurkaev, a 19-year-old Chechen native, was abducted from his workplace by two men who introduced themselves as Chechen law enforcement officers. When Salman’s family tried to report an abduction to the police, they were promised that their son would be back home in a week if they kept quiet. It’s been almost a year, and Salman is still being held hostage by the Chechen authorities.

Case Background

Salman Tepsurkaev lived with his parents and brother in a small Chechen village before moving to Gelendzhik to work as a waiter at a resort hotel. Along with this, he was secretly moderating the 1ADAT Telegram channel. Created in March 2020 to connect Chechen immigrants abroad, the channel gained thousands of followers in just six months. 1ADAT positions itself as a “civil movement against Ramzan Kadyrov’s dictatorship”.  1ADAT exposes government torture and repressions, gross human rights violations, mass corruption, secret prisons, and other illegal actions of Chechen officials and sheds light on  social inequality in Chechnya, documenting the incredible wealth and luxurious lifestyles of Chechen officials in contrast with the unemployment, corruption, and poverty that ordinary Chechens face daily.

In May of 2020, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, appointed several journalists of the Grozny State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company to high level government jobs. Kadyrov was explicit about the mandate of these appointees— identifying and punishing his critics on the Internet. Seeing that the 1ADAT Telegram channel was one of the most influential outlets criticizing Kadyrov’s tyrant regime, the newly appointed officials immediately started the “hunt” on the channels’ activists. At their command, a few anonymous 1ADAT’s channel members sent $500 to Salman Tepsurkaev’s PayPal account under the pretext of donating. These transactions were made to identify Salman’s phone number and location. Obtaining such data would have been impossible without access to Tepsurkayev’s detailed phone billings, which are available only to law enforcement.

The Abduction

On September 6, 2020, two men dressed in black came to the Laguna resort hotel in Gelendzhik where Salman Tepsurkaev worked as a waiter. While one of the men guarded the front entrance, another went into the building and grabbed Salman. Salman tried to escape from the abductors, holding on to a column by the front desk and shouting “Call the police!” The hotel workers called security and tried to intervene, but one of the abductors showed them a law enforcement ID.

Salman was forced out of the hotel and his coworkers never saw him again.

For an entire day afterward, Salman’s phone was turned off and his location was unknown until it was turned back on briefly the next day. At that point, his family discovered that their son was kept at a police office in Grozny, Chechnya. That specific office is notorious for being the holding space for abducted Chechens and the location of many extrajudicial executions. Salman’s family quickly traveled to Grozny, but when they got to the location, they were told Salman was not there. The relatives tried to report the abduction to the police, but Grozny Investigative Department told the family to keep quiet and they would see their son in a week. A week later, Salman was not released.

Public Torture and Humiliation

On the day of the abduction, an anonymous member of the 1ADAT channel under the nickname “Hunter” published a video of a completely naked Chechen youth sitting on his knees with a glass bottle in front of him. In the video, a young man introduces himself as Salman Tepsurkayev, and states that he is 19 years old and is one of the administrators of 1ADAT. In a distraught and confused speech, he tries to explain what the channel is about, calling it a “dirty group”, in which the administrators “do disgusting things” that he is ashamed of. Salman also insults his mother and calls himself a bastard and a scum who was rejected by his father a long time ago. In the end, Tepsurkaev says he “punishes himself for a behavior inappropriate for a Chechen and passes the baton to other channel administrators and followers”.  He then attempts to sit down on a glass bottle. His face contorts in pain and the video cuts off. In the next few days, more videos of Salman were released by anonymous users both on Telegram and Instagram. In the videos, Salman continues to criticize the Chechen opposition and keeps cursing himself. In addition, the Chechen state-controlled TV channel published a video message from Salman’s father.  In which he states that he disowned his son years ago for “disobedience and terrible behavior”.

Case Proceedings

On September 8, 2020, the Memorial Human Rights Center (MHRC) filed a complaint with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation in the Chechen Republic, demanding an investigation of the abduction and torture of Salman Tepsurkaev.

The Chechen Republic refused to open the case citing the absence of a crime.

On September 11, 2020, lawyers of the Committee Against Torture filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on the violation of Salman’s rights under Articles 3 and 5 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms: “Prohibition of torture” and “The right to personal inviolability.” The ECHR lodged an inquiry with the Russian government on what measures to release Tepsurkaev are being implemented on the national level. The ECHR has not received any response from the Chechen officials.

On October 15, investigators from Gelendzhik, where Salman’s workplace is located, transferred the materials they had collected to the Chechen Investigation Department since the car of Tepsurkaev’s alleged abductors had crossed the Chechen border.

The Chechen police refused to initiate a criminal case, citing the absence of a crime.

At this time, it is unknown where Salman is located or whether he is alive.

Why the Memorial Human Rights Center Recognizes Salman Tepsurkaev as a Political Prisoner

Involvement of the Chechen Special Services

The MHRC believes there are serious grounds to believe that the Chechen Special Services were involved in the kidnapping of Salman Tepsurkaev. Discovering Salman’s location required access to information from telecommunication networks.  This information is only available to law enforcement officials associated with the Chechen Special Services. Investigation has also revealed that at least one of the two vehicles involved in the abduction belonged to a current Chechen Interior Ministry employee.

Salman Tepsurkaev is a Victim of Kadyrov’s regime

As it has been documented by numerous sources, including Novaya Gazeta and Kavkaz Uzel, psychological pressure and torture are known methods of Chechen authorities.  These methods are used to punish those who criticized Ramzan Kadyrov and whose political beliefs differ from the government’s. The facility in Grozny where Salman was kept has become a place of detention, torture, and extrajudicial executions of illegally arrested residents of Chechnya.

The open approval of torture by Chechen officials

Several representatives of the Chechen top leadership including Adam Delimkhanov and Salakh Mezhiev, indirectly confirmed that they knew the identities of those behind the abduction of Tepsurkaev and had approved such actions. At the same time, the investigative authorities of the Chechen Republic refuse to investigate the abduction.

Violation of the right of freedom of expression

The MHRC asserts that although the current location of Salam Tepsurkaev is unknown, and information is lacking on the circumstances of his abduction, the MHRC considers him alive and illegally detained by Chechen officials. The MHRC claims that the video recordings with Salman’s participation were made under extreme pressure and are the result of torture. Salman’s persecution seeks to silence all public criticism of the Chechen authorities and terrorize the opposition with cruelty and public humiliation. Salman’s persecution violates his right to freedom and security, as well as freedom of expression. The Memorial Human Rights Center along with the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights and the Representative for Foreign and Security Policy of the EU demand that the Russian government takes immediate action to ensure the safety of Salman Tepsurkaev and investigate the illegal actions committed against him.

“I came out to the street to express my solidarity with Alexei Navalny and support the Russian people. I just wanted to help an innocent kid when I saw he was brutally mishandled by the police. I never wanted to cause any harm or humiliate anyone, especially the security officers.”
Valeriy Yevsin during his court hearing on April 7, 2021

Case Background

On January 23, 2021, mass protests broke out in almost 100 cities across Russia and internationally. Thousands of peaceful protesters came out to support Alexei Navalny, a prominent ant-corruption politician and Putin’s top political rival, who was illegally arrested by the Russian government on January 17. People who have participated in these protests are now facing the most brutal repression in the history of modern Russia. Hundreds of people were assaulted on the streets by the police, and in the months since, more still have faced interrogations, house raids, psychological abuse, and illegal incarcerations at the hands of law enforcement– all because they peacefully exercised their legal right to protest.

Though the intensity of these repressions has certainly increased since the spring of 2020, the approach and schemes used by law enforcement to crack down on protestors, are not new. Indeed, after an earlier wave of mass protests in Russia took place in July of 2019, dozens of people faced criminal charges for allegedly “causing harm to the health of the police officers.” This particular criminal charge has emerged a frequently-used government method for prosecuting protestors. The most notorious example is the “Moscow case,” opened on July 27, 2019, in which 13 protesters received anywhere from two to four years in prison for merely “pushing a government official,” “touching the arm of a government official,” or “slapping a government official’s helmet.” Beyond the disproportionate punishment for such actions even theoretically-speaking, these charges were made without any supporting evidence (read more on the “Moscow case” in our report). No matter their validity, these cases have established a new avenue for the government to silence opposition: prosecuting the innocent for supposedly endangering police officers and making it clear that anything that is ever said or done against the police will result in a prison sentence.

The 2021 protests in support of Alexei Navalny have deployed this mechanism en masse, with dozens charged with “causing grievous bodily harm to the police.”In reality, these brave Russians exercised their constitutionally-guaranteed rights and stood up to the government oppression.

Case Defendant

Valeriy Yevsin came to Moscow from the Pskov Oblast to work as a taxi driver. He is married and is a doting father to two small boys. His social media pages used to consists mainly of family photos and reposts of content from opposition politicians and activists. But now his account has been flooded with “pro-Kremlin” trolls barraging him for his criticism of the government and divulging personal information about his life: “Pal, are you not satisfied with your life? You have kids, a car, you go on vacations. What else do you need?”

On April 7, after two months in detention without seeing his wife and kids, Mr. Yevsin was found guilty by the court and sent to prison for two years. The supposed crime he committed: “pushing a metal street closure barricade in the direction of a police officer” during the protest on January 23. These charges fall under Part 1, Art. 318 of the Criminal Code of Russia – “The use of violence, not dangerous to life or health, against a government official on duty”.

Events preceding Mr. Yevsin’s arrest

According to Mr. Yevsin, on January 23, he was walking down the Sretenskiy Boulevard in Moscow with a group of protesters when he heard someone from the crowd scream that the police was assaulting a teenage boy. Valeriy said that he saw the police grabbing a skinny-looking teenager and dragging him away. Mr. Yevsin felt he simply could not just walk away and he felt the responsibility to help the boy. He confornted the police and asked them to release the innocent kid. The crowd supported Mr. Yevsin and started screaming “Let him go! Let him go!,” a plea which the police ignored, continuing to drag the boy away . Furious, Mr. Yevsin and a few other protesters pushed a metal barrier toward one of the police officers, which lightly brushed one of the officer’s chest. The officer wielded his baton to hit Mr. Yevsin, but Valeriy managed to duck the hit.

Later, during his interrogation, Mr. Yevsin said: “I saw that the police had finally released the boy, and I shouted to the crowd that we could leave and that the conflict was resolved. Everyone started applauding and we left.”

A few days later, the police found Mr. Yevsin by tracking his car’s license plate number, arrested him, and brought him to the detention center. The police officer brushed by the metal barrier against claimed that Mr. Yevsin was aggressive, that he tried to grab his baton, and that he deliberately lifted the metal barrier with the intent of hitting the officer in the chest and the stomach. The officer maintained that the incident caused him great physical pain.

According to the Memorial Human Rights Center, this claim was intentionally exaggerated to make it seem like Valeriy Yevsin had caused damage to the health of the police officer which in reality did not happen.

 Speaking in his own defense, Mr. Yevsin said he never wanted to cause harm or humiliate a police officer and that all he wanted was to help a child in danger. He said he was sorry that this situation took place and he later admitted his guilt hoping that the court would reduce his punishment. Nevertheless, on April 7, the court sentenced him to two years in prison.

Why does the Memorial Human Rights Center consider Valery Yevsin a political prisoner?

Politicized context

The Memorial Human Rights Center asserts that to understand the nature of a person’s detention it is important to consider the context of the event, as well as the reactions of the law enforcement and judicial systems to it.

 In this case, the important elemnt of the context is that Valeriy Yevsin was taking part in a peaceful protest that constituted a legitimate expression of public outrage at the Putin government’s repressive actions. Yet, in spite of the legal nature of this protest,, law enforcement agents used extreme violence towards protesters trying to silence them and end their completely legitimate activity.

 Mr. Yevsin’s arrest is political in that it seeks to scare activists and silence voices of dissent. Furthermore, Russian law enforcement have already violated people’s right to protest, by brutally and illegally beating up protestors each time they take to the streets. The police officer identified as the victim in Yevsin’s case declared that he ‘experienced great pain’ from the push. Yet, at the time of the incident, he was wearing full body armor and could not have possibly suffered any physical injuries from such an insignificant push. In contrast, on the same day of the incident with Mr. Yevsin, the police seriously injured dozens of protesters and have gone unpunished for their violence. This is in spite of the fact that their actions were recorded in photos and videos and that the protesters’ injuries have been confirmed by medical records. The Memorial Center claims that such a selective use of criminal prosecution is evidence of a clear bias of the Russian authorities on who deserves punishment and who does not. Thus, Mr. Yevsin must be considered a political prisoner.

Biased legislation

Common punishments based on Article 318.1 (the statute under which Mr. Yevsin was charged) imposed on people in non-political cases are far less severe than those imposed on protesters. For example, outside of the context of a protest, for punching a police officer in the jaw, one could get fined for 50 thousand rubles (approximately $680), and for swinging at a police officer with an ax one could get six months in a penal colony. Yet, while at a political protest, if one touches the helmet of a police officer, a person could receive a three-year prison sentence.

The Memorial Center believes that such blatant disparities prove the unjust selectivity of persecution of this particular law. Through prosecutions like that of Mr. Yevsin, the police and the National Guard are transmitting a clear message to the public: the police are allowed to commit any act of violence with impunity, while ordinary citizens who dare to disagree with the government will be punished as severely as possible.

The Memorial Human Rights Center considers Valeriy Yevsin a political prisoner and demands that he and other victims of the regime arrested and jailed during peaceful protests are released and the persecution against them is stopped immediately.