“An Ugly Continuity” — Russia’s Political Prisoners in 2020
January 27, 2019
According to a new poll by the Levada Center, 63 percent of Russians believe that their country is holding political prisoners – defined as people convicted for their political views or for aspiring in political life.
As the Moscow Times reports, this number is up from 50 percent of respondents the year before. The increase may be attributable to arrests of opposition protesters made over the summer in the context of the so-called “Moscow Case”.
Respondents to the poll are on to something:
Writes the Washington Post editorial board in a recent column:
“In many ways, Russia today does not resemble the Soviet Union, which heaved its last breath 28 years ago. The dreary ideology of communism is nearly forgotten, and the party bosses of old would be shocked at today’s gleaming Moscow skyscrapers. Russians are free to travel, unlike Soviet Jews whose mere application for exit visas got them in trouble. But Russia remains very much like the Soviet Union in one respect: It still has prisoners of conscience, incarcerated for their beliefs and subject to criminal prosecution for what they say.”
(…)
“Memorial [Human Rights Center] now estimates there are at least 314 prisoners of conscience in Russia: 250 in connection with their religious beliefs and 64 for other political reasons. This is an ugly continuity.”
Perhaps the ugliest continuity in this context is the case of Alexey Pichugin, who, in spite of the fact that he was merely a manager within the company’s security department, was the first victim of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s drawn-out and personal campaign to expropriate Yukos Oil Company and destroy the company’s leadership. Mr. Pichugin was arrested in 2003. Sixteen years later he remains incarcerated. His steadfast refusal to bear witness against former company leaders Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Leonid Nevzlin has earned Mr. Pichugin the dubious distinction of being Russia’s longest-serving political prisoner.
Russia’s human rights advocates have been enlisting the help of the international community in recent years — both to shine a light on Russia’s political prisoners and to put pressure on the Russian regime. However, against the backdrop of President Putin’s most recent constitutional “reform” announcements, which human rights activist and chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom Vladimir Kara-Murza has described as a “constitutional coup d’état”, their work isn’t getting any easier.
Graphic: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, ‘Political Prisoners’ in Russia, January 21, 2020 [https://www.rferl.org/a/political-prisoners-in-russia/30389133.html].
