Putin has Increased the Number of Political Prisoners from One or Two Each Year at the Start of His Rule to Several Hundred a Year Now, Memorial Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 23 – Between 1999 and today, the Putin regime has put behind bars approximately 1500 people whom rights activists classify as political prisoners. More than 750 of them are still there. And each year, the authorities are incarcerating such prisoners at an increasing rate, from one or two a year early on in this period to several hundred annually now.

            Those are the conclusions of the Memorial human rights group in a report about human rights developments in Russia under Putin, as featured in a lengthy article by the Vyorstka news agency (verstka.media/issledovanie-kak-menialos-kolichestvo-politzakluchennih-pri-vladimire-putine).

            Memorial describes how Russian repression has evolved and predicts that even if the Kremlin does not give new orders for more people to be incarcerated for political reasons, the size of the existing repressive organs is now so great that there is little reason to think they won’t continue to do so to justify their own existence.

            Over the last two years, ever more women and non-Russian activists have become political prisoners; and their associates still outside the barbed wire are calling on the international community to do more for these groups than was the case in the most recent prisoner exchange (idelreal.org/a/my-prizyvaem-obratit-vnimanie-i-na-politicheskih-uznikov-natsionalnyh-dvizheniy-v-rossii-/33088477.html).