The head of the Karelian “Memorial”, historian Yuri Dmitriev, who is already serving his seventh year of a 15-year sentence in the colony IK-18 of the Republic of Mordovia, was sent to a punishment cell for 15 days for sitting on a bunk in a cell due to dizziness. This was reported on Twitter by the human rights center Memorial, which was liquidated by a decision of a Russian court.
This time, the 67-year-old historian was sent to a punishment cell for 15 days. Human rights activists say that recently he was unwell, his pressure was rising.
“After taking the medicine, he felt dizzy, and he sat down on the bunk. The inspector immediately wrote a report: “I was in my sleeping place during the day. Such a strict measure against an elderly and unhealthy person can hardly be called otherwise than a mockery. Only recently, in mid-March, did the court on Dmitriev’s complaint against a series of similar penalties in September-December 2022 end,” the Memorial said in a statement.
Earlier, Dmitriev was forced to refuse the transfer of vital things and products, which can be received once every four months.
The historian is serving his sentence in IK-18 in the village of Potma. He was detained in 2016 on charges of making pornography with the participation of his adopted daughter. Two years later, he was acquitted, but later the court overturned the acquittal. In 2018, another case was added to the charge – about violent actions against a child. In the summer of 2020, the Petrozavodsk city court sentenced Dmitriev to 3.5 years in prison. The historian pleaded not guilty.
At the end of September of the same year, the Supreme Court of Karelia increased the sentence under the first article to 13 years. At the same time, the court overturned the acquittal under articles on the production of pornography, indecent acts and possession of weapons. At the end of December 2021, Dmitriev's sentence was increased to 15 years.
As director of the Karelian "Memorial" Dmitriev studied the mass graves in Sandarmokh and Krasny Bor. In total, about 150 grave pits were recorded and marked, in which there could be about 4.5 thousand bodies of people who were shot during the years of Stalinist repressions. More than 400 European and American scientists and artists signed an open appeal demanding the release of the historian. Dmitriev was awarded the Moscow Helsinki Group Prize for his historical contribution to the protection of human rights and the human rights movement.
