Where Is Ildar Dadin?

Activists Picketing in Support of Ildar Dadin Detained in Moscow
RBC
January 4, 2016

Police in Moscow detained six activists [Pavel Kuznetsov, Mikhail Lashkevich, Leonid Dubrovo, Tatyana Tarvid, Elena Zakharova, and Maria Ryabikova — TRR] who had been holding solo pickets in support of Ildar Dadin, according to OVD Info.

The activists had been picketing on Zhitnaya Street, where the Federal Penitentiary Service and Justice Ministry are located. Several of the picketers held placards that read, “Where is Dadin?”

The detainees were taken to Yakimanka police precinct.

Later, activist Sergei Ozhich reported on his Facebook page that all six detainees had been released. They have been charged with misdemeanors under Article 20.2.5 of the Russian Federal Administrative Offenses Code (violation of the established rules for holding assemblies, rallies, demonstrations, marches, and pickets by a participant of a public event).

In early November 2016, Dadin wrote in a letter that he had been severely beaten and threatened by the staff at the penal colony where he was imprisoned. The Federal Penitentiary Service, the Investigative Committee, the Presidential Human Rights Council, and civil rights activists took an interest in his case.

Members of the Presidential Human Rights Council recommended that the Federal Penitentiary Service transfer Dadin to another penal colony. In early December, he was transferred to another colony. Anastasia Zotova, Dadin’s wife, filed an inquiry with the Federal Penitentiary Service’s Karelian Directorate asking about his whereabouts. His whereabouts are still unknown, however. By law, the inmate should have informed a relative of his whereabouts within ten days.

Dadin is serving a sentence for violating the law on [“unauthorized” political] rallies. In December [2015], he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, but a court later reduced the sentence to two and and half years. Dadin was the first person sentenced to an actual prison sentence under the new law.

Translated by the Russian Reader