8 February 2021
Pictured: Sergei Kovalev, member of the Public Commission to Protect the Legacy of Academician Sakharov, chair of Russian Memorial, member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, one of the signers of the statement
Source: Moscow Helsinki Group
We, political prisoners of the Soviet era, having gone through prisons, camps, isolation cells, the tortures of hunger and cold, and other similar methods of Soviet “reeducation,” are outraged to learn of the unlawful arrests, beatings, and torture-like conditions in preliminary detention of those who attended the peaceful protests in recent days. The brutality of the violence against people who went out to peacefully demonstrate their civic stands, and in some cases who just happened to be out on the street at that time, attests to the ever firmer establishment of totalitarian practices in Russia.
We are outraged by this return to the worst times of state terror in our country. We declare our solidarity with today’s political prisoners and express our sympathy and support. As full-fledged citizens of the Russian Federation, we demand that the political leadership of the country cease the violence against participants in peaceful protests and immediately free all those arrested and unfairly convicted.
Lev Timofeyev
Aleksandr Podrabinek
Aleksandr Skobov
Aleksei Smirnov
Elena Sannikova
Ilyia Burmistrovich
Kirill Podrabinek
Nikolai Ivliushkin
Pavel Protsenko
Yuli Rybakov
Sergei Kovalev
Translated by John Tokolish
