Correctional Colony No. 19 in Volgograd Oblast, where four colony employees and four convicts were killed in a hostage situation on August 23, had the whole set of problems of the penal system. Convicts were abused here, and they slit their wrists; superiors were caught taking bribes; recruitment for the PMC “Wagner” and the regular army was conducted here - every fourth person died. Lattice under the stairs The high-security
Exactly four years after the uprising of the Belarusian democracy movement in the summer of 2020, the best-known exile organisation ‘Viasna’ presents its infographic ‘4 Years of Mass Repression’. Excerpts from it here at a glance Looking back: Spring 2020 - 3 presidential candidates eliminated Courageous and powerful men had indeed put themselves on the list of presidential candidates for the election in August 2020 in accordance with democratic
The youngest of them is 16 years old today. Following the Russian prisoner exchange, the OVD organisation currently counts 2747 politically motivated criminal proceedings, including 1015 against opponents of the war, 131 of which were against children and young people. 15-year-old Arsenij Turbin from Liwny was recently sentenced to 5 years in prison for distributing anti-war leaflets. Today he has to celebrate his 16th birthday behind prison walls. The
Statistics of Belarusian protest. 4 years of repression There are currently at least 1,385 political prisoners in prison. Some 65,000 people have been arrested in four years as part of political persecution. At least half a million Belarusians have fled Belarus 500,000 More than 74,000 cases of repression have been registered in four years: searches, short-term and long-term detentions, interrogations, etc. At least 6,971 people are known to be criminally
Russia exchanges spies for political prisoners According to data available to The Insider, the released political prisoners include Evan Gershkovich, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Paul Whelan, Ilya Yashin, Alsu Kurmasheva, Andrei Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov, Alexandra Skochilenko, Lilia Chanysheva, Ksenia Fadeeva, Rico Krieger, Kevin Lik, Demuri Voronin, Vadim Ostanin, Patrick Schobel, and Herman Moyzhes. In return, Russia has received FSB operative Vadim Krasikov, along with multiple spies and fraudsters. HOW THE TALKS
The German Foreign Ministry confirmed the information about the death sentence of German citizen Rico Krieger in Belarus According to the German Foreign Ministry in response to DW request, the department and the German Embassy in Minsk provide consular assistance to this person and work intensively with the Belarusian authorities in his interests. ‘The death penalty is a cruel and inhuman form of punishment, which Germany rejects under any circumstances,’
12 more children returned to Ukraine from occupied territories This was announced by the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for human rights Dmytro Lubinets. "It was possible to return 12 Ukrainian children to their homeland! Children together with their relatives lived - in Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions. Fortunately, now they are already in Ukrainian-controlled territory. Each family experienced in its own way the mess created by the occupation 'authorities'," Lubinets
Evan Gershkovich was detained in the spring of 2023 in Ekaterinburg. Russian authorities accused him of espionage. According to the investigators, the journalist was commissioned by the CIA to collect information about Uralvagonzavod, which manufactures and repairs military equipment. The investigation claims that this information constitutes a state secret. Courts regularly extend the journalist's stay in pre-trial detention. Gershkovich does not admit guilt, insisting that he was engaged in Russia
The 1st Western District Military Court of St Petersburg has sentenced artists Anastasia Dyudyaeva and Alexander Dotsenko in a case of "calls to terrorism" over postcards in Ukrainian posted in Lenta. The prosecution requested 4 years of imprisonment for the couple. The court sentenced Alexander to 3 years in prison and his wife Anastasia to 3.5 years. According to the investigation, Dyudyaeva made leaflets in Ukrainian, on which, among other
Fifteen-year-old Arseny Turbin, from the town of Livny, in western Russia’s Oryol region, was sentenced to five years in prison for terrorism on 21 June. Though he excelled at maths and was fascinated by physics and tech, he had planned to study political science, in an attempt to better understand what was happening in Russia and with the hope that it would teach him how to improve the situation further
