Russian political prisoners in the year of 2018: the situation and its trends

We are presenting an overview of the changes and trends in the situation with Russian political prisoners (the text HRC "Memorial"’s report within HDIM-2018 in Warsaw).

For a year, from the beginning of September last year, the number of political prisoners has increased.

On September 1, 2018, 46 people were on the list of political prisoners (with exception of those persecuted in connection with the realization of the right to freedom of religion and religious affiliation). In the list of persecuted in connection with the realization of the right to freedom of religion and religious affiliation - 137 people. A total of 183 people.

A year ago in the "general" list of political prisoners there were 49 people, two and three years ago - 50 (100) and 35 (45) people, respectively.

During this period, 25 people were released, 88 people were added to the lists of political prisoners.

Among those who were included in the list of political prisoners of the HRC Memorial in the past year were those who became hostages to the anti-Ukrainian campaign of the Russian government, citizens who were imprisoned due to the peaceful exercise of freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of association, activists, journalists, human rights defenders.

The number of people who were deprived of their liberty in connection with the realization of the right to freedom of religion has dramatically increased during this period: the number of people imprisoned for participating in the unjustifiably declared terrorist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir and other peaceful Muslims, dozens of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Despite all the conventionality of this indicator, an increase in the average imprisonment sentence term to the political prisoners in our lists shows toughening of repressions.

The review is based on statistics as of September 1, 2018 (the lists are attached), but as the number of political prisoners in Russia, unfortunately, grows steadily, even during this period it increased to 201 people.

Current lists of political prisoners (in Russian) can be found on the website of the HRC "Memorial": https://memohrc.org/en/pzk-list and https://memohrc.org/ru/aktualnyy-spisok-presleduemyh-v-svyazi-s-realizaciey-prava-na-svobodu-veroispovedaniya