Alexey Pichugin One of “10 Names Russia Hopes You’ll Never Know”
October 31, 2018
According to Vitalii Rybak, an analyst at Internews Ukraine writing for the Atlantic Council blog, Alexey Pichugin, Russia’s longest-serving political prisoner, is one of “10 names Russia hopes you’ll never know.”
“Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Moscow and its proxies have put dozens of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar political prisoners behind bars. However, there are many other people in Russian prisons who have been incarcerated for their unwillingness to bow down to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
The fabrication of these cases has been refined in Russia’s courts. There a court does not needreal evidence, just an order from above. The evidence and all other case-related elements can be carelessly thrown together, as the details don’t matter. Moreover, Russians can hold people in pre-trial detention centers for years without trial.”
Making clear that there are many others whose names should also not be forgotten, Rybak snapshots the cases of ten political prisoners – Ukrainian, Tatar, Russian and Danish – all of whom are currently serving sentences in Russian prisons.
On Alexey Pichugin he writes:
“A former manager in the security department of the Russian oil company Yukos, Alexey Pichugin was detained in 2003 (…). The company has been targeted and expropriated by Putin’s clan, as Khodorkovsky and Nevzlin had been increasingly active in opposition politics and civil society. Pichugin is one of the first political prisoners of Russian modern history. Since 2003 he has faced multiple trials, which the European Court of Human Rights ruled as unfair and in violation of his human rights. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in a special-regime penal colony.”
He concludes:
“The number of political prisoners in Russia has been growing in recent years, and this is unlikely to change. More interference and pressure from the international community is necessary, as this has proven to be the only factor which secures the rare and occasional release of political prisoners.”
To learn more about Alexey Pichugin’s case and to view a timeline of his ordeal, click here and here.
Source: Vitalii Rybak, 10 Names Russia Hopes You’ll Never Know, The Atlantic Council Blog, October 30, 2018.
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