10 November 2024
On the 50th anniversary of the Day of Political Prisoners and in connection with the statement by the Chairman of the Presidential Human Rights Council that there are no political prisoners in Russia today
Statement by members of the Russian Helsinki Group
Source: Russian Helsinki Group
We again insist on the unconditional release of all Russian citizens who have found themselves behind bars in violation of the fundamental provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Federation!
October 30, 2024 is the 50th anniversary of the Day of Political Prisoners, declared in 1974 on the initiative of Kronid Lyubarsky, Alexei Murzhenko and other prisoners of the Mordovian and Perm camps, and which became in Russia the official state Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression in October 1991.
In connection with this significant date, the Chairman of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights (HRC) Valery Fadeyev called the current repressions in Russia “sanitary measures“: “What we see now – yes, we have a difficult, tough situation, we are waging a war with the West. And some minimal restrictions for those who actually take the side of the enemy, this is not repression, this is minimal sanitary measures“
In Soviet times, citizens who were repressed by the authorities for expressing disagreement with the policies of the Bolsheviks were called “counterrevolutionaries” and “enemies of the people.” Today, continuing this murderous tradition for our country, the Chairman of the Human Rights Council declared any citizen who publicly expressed their horror in connection with the mass human sacrifice taking place in these days and calling for peace to be a “supporter of the enemy” and subject to “restrictions”. Let us recall in this regard the Moscow municipal deputy Alexei Gorinov, the young poets Artem Kamardin and Yegor Shtovba and many others, who were sentenced to many years of imprisonment.
According to human rights organizations, the number of Russian citizens repressed for expressing disagreement with the policies of the authorities today is about 3,000. However, Russia is a huge country, the machine of political repression works with great efficiency, and no one knows how many such citizens there are in reality. In the said statement, Valery Fadeyev rightly noted the nightmare of political repression in the 1920s and 1930s yet completely incorrectly compared those eras with the situation today. A comparison of today’s political repressions with those of the late USSR era will not be in favour of modern day Russia.
Observance of human rights, including freedom of thought and speech, is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Russian Federation – see the attached statements of the Russian Helsinki Group ‘In Defence of the Constitution of the Russian Federation‘ dated 10/21/2023; and ‘On the 30th Anniversary of the Constitution of the Russian Federation‘ dated 12/12/2023. Prosecutions for critical speech and the persecution of dissidents are unconstitutional and obviously fall into the category of political repression. The fact that the Chairman of the Human Rights Council denies this speaks to his complete professional unsuitability for the post he occupies.
We again insist on the unconditional release of all Russian citizens who have found themselves behind bars in violation of the fundamental provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Federation!
10 November 2024
Members of the Russian Helsinki Group:
- Boris Altshuler,
- Yuri Kostanov,
- Sergey Krivenko,
- Sergey Lukashevsky,
- Karinna Moskalenko,
- Lev Ponomarev,
- Sergey Sorokin,
- Ilya Shablinsky,
- Liliya Shibanova
See also: ‘К 50-летию «Дня политзаключенного» и в связи с заявлением Председателя СПЧ, что в России сегодня нет политзаключенных,’ International Helsinki Association for Human Rights, 10 November 2024
