All news

Russian ombudsman pledges to control observance of jailed activist's rights

On Sunday, opposition activist Ildar Dadin arrived in Altai from a colony in Karelia following his claims of being tortured

MOSCOW, January 9. /TASS/. Russia’s human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said on Monday she will continue controlling how the rights of opposition activist Ildar Dadin are observed in a colony in the Altai Territory, in southwestern Siberia.

On Sunday, Dadin arrived in Altai from a colony in Karelia, northwestern Russia after Moskalkova’s request to the federal prison authority following his claims of being tortured.

Dadin was allowed to have a phone conversation with his wife Anastasiya Zotova. "During this conversation he did not voice any claims but the situation remains under my control," Moskalkova told TASS. Zotova earlier told TASS that her husband arrived in the colony number 5, adding that the correctional facility was considered as impeccable.

The human rights commissioner in the Altai Territory, Boris Larin, said he was ready to meet with Dadin in early February.

Dadin is the first person in Russia sentenced for violation of Article 212.1 of the Criminal Code (repeated violations of the rules of public gatherings). In December 2015, Moscow’s Basmanny District Court found Dadin guilty on four counts of participating in unauthorized protests in Moscow. Dadin was sentenced to three years in a penal colony but then the Moscow City Court reduced his jail term to two and a half years. However, his defense attorney filed an appeal against the sentence to the Russian Supreme Court.

The media publicized Dadin’s letter in autumn 2016 in which he claimed to have been tortured in the colony number 7 in Segezh, Karelia. Members of Russia’s Presidential Council for Civil Society Development and Human Rights said in a report no objective evidence to prove Dadin’s claims of being tortured in a Karelian penal colony could be found so far. Independent doctors who examined Dadin found no signs of injuries on his body.