International Women’s Day Special: Taisiya Osipova, Political Prisoner

March 8 marks the hundredth anniversary of International Women’s Day celebrations in Russia. This is the second in a series of posts focusing on the work and plight of several different women involved in political and social activism in Russia today.

In August 2012, Taisiya Osipova, an activist in The Other Russia opposition party, was sentenced to eight years in prison on drugs charges. She and her supporters have always maintained her innocence, claiming that police planted the drugs found in her apartment in Smolensk during a search in order to pressure her into cooperating with them and testifying against her husband, Sergei Fomchenkov, a senior party activist.

In sentencing her to eight years in prison, the court not only failed to take into account the evidence of her innocence, but also ignored the fact that Osipova is the mother of a young child and suffers from several chronic illnesses, including diabetes.

Sergei Fomchenkov recently posted the following text on Facebook. In it, he describes the extreme difficulties Osipova and her fellow inmates at the women’s penal colony in Vishny Volochok have getting decent, humane medical care, and the recent family visit that he and their daughter Katrina made there. 

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“Scalding hot! Torzhok!”
By Sergei Fomchenkov
March 1, 2013

The title of this article is a partial quotation of a bit of prison humor at the women’s penal colony in Vyshny Volochok, where Taisiya Osipova is an inmate. This dark humor is associated with the medical unit, to be more precise, with its head doctor, Valery Moskvin, a colorful character and one known well in town, beyond the premises of the penal colony. The full version of the phrase goes like this: “Scalding hot! Torzhok! The way our medicine works, I can’t promise you Torzhok!” It is uttered by the women prisoners, every one of whom before work in the morning walks down the aisle between rows of beds carrying a liter mug full of boiling water. There is not so much time to get ready for work, and the women have to manage to drink a cup of tea or coffee before going, so they do everything quickly. Rushing down the narrow aisle between rows of bed to her section, the female inmate risks pouring boiling water on other women straying into her path. To keep this from happening, the person carrying boiling water is supposed to loudly repeat the phrase, “Scalding hot! Torzhok. . .” Its meaning is clear only to the local inhabitants, who have encountered the specific form of prison medical care at Correctional Colony No. 5. The fact is that the town of Torzhok is home to the Federal Penitentiary Service’s Tver Regional Hospital. Since the means available to the medical unit at the penal colony are quite limited—they do not have the necessary equipment, specialists, and so forth—comprehensive medical care is impossible. This is a problem common to such medical facilities. But the regional prison hospital in Torzhok has more means at its disposal (although things there are not ideal, either) in terms of equipment and specialists, and they say the staff there has a better attitude about doing their jobs.

“We’re all going there. Some sooner, some later”

Mr. Moskvin really hates referring sick inmates to the regional prison hospital. This isn’t simply a matter of the prejudice, often held in his profession, that inmates feign their illnesses. It also has to do with Mr. Moskvin’s personal character.

The following story characterizes this scion of Hippocrates. Upon her arrival at the camp, an inmate named Elena told him she had a history of cancer, and had undergone multiple surgeries for the removal of tumors. Moskvin responded, “Where did you get that idea? You make something up, and then you end up believing it.” She didn’t know what to say to that. Some time later, a growth appeared on Elena’s back, and she went to Dr. Moskvin to ask to have it looked at the prison hospital in Torzhok. Instead, without doing any tests, this man of medicine prescribed the following course of treatment: for a month, iodine was rubbed on the tumor. But since that didn’t help, he ordered the ointment Levomekol rubbed on it, again for a month. The tumor continued to grow, and the pain got worse. Three months after her initial request, Elena once again visited the head doctor, requesting that something be done. Moskvin once again suggested iodine. Elena asked him, “Will it help?” “It won’t get any worse,” was his reply. In the end, Elena was finally sent to the hospital in Torzhok, where they surgically removed the tumor.

This is just one story of many. I am quoting Elena verbatim, because I spoke with her personally. I am not a doctor. But the stories I heard during my prolonged visit with Taisiya confirm Elena’s account. For instance, when another inmate with cancer asked Moskvin to send her to the Torzhok hospital, he told her, “Why bother? Nothing will save you now.” The most proverbial of his sayings, which he likes to repeat to the female inmates who come to him for help, is, “We’re all going THERE. Some sooner, some later.” This is his way of saying that there isn’t much point in doing tests or getting treatment.

High-Ranking Commission

Several days after Taisiya was deprived, in January, of the pills she needs, and this was reported on the Web, a commission of high-ranking officials from the Federal Penitentiary Service came to visit the penal colony. On the day of their arrival, January 29, 2013, Taisiya was taken to the regular municipal clinic for an appointment with an endocrinologist.  There is no endocrinologist on staff in the penal colony’s medical unit, and even the glucose tolerance test done before she was sent to the municipal clinic was done incorrectly. The endocrinologist confirmed this to Taisiya. She also explained that Taisiya needed a full slate of tests at a regular in-patient hospital. Upon Taisiya’s return to the penal colony, she found out that high-ranking authorities were visiting, which explained why she had suddenly been sent to an endocrinologist. Only one member of this “commission” met with her. This official admitted that the colony lacked the necessary resources for treating her illness, but promised her that by mid-February she would be taken to a real hospital, regardless of what head of the medical unit Dr. Moskvin wanted. At the same time, the official also expressed doubt that this would in any way benefit Taisiya, saying that with illnesses like hers it was “quite possible to live without receiving treatment.” Unfortunately, Taisiya did not remember his name.

Maximum Security Family Living

Almost everything recounted above I found out during my prolonged visit with Taisiya, from February 4 to February 7. Our daughter Katrina and I had come to the penal colony for a visit. The building where the visit was held was on the premises of the colony. It had four rooms, a common kitchen, and a bathroom. We had registered for the visit in advance. A prolonged visit, which entails living together for three days, is allowed once every three months. A short visit is allowed once every two months, through glass, and lasts four hours.

During a prolonged visit, each inmate and her relatives (only close relatives are allowed the privilege of such visits) are given a single room to share. In it, there are two beds, a refrigerator, and a television. Food is prepared in the common kitchen. Visitors and their groceries are thoroughly searched before entering the visitation building. A search is also conducted upon departure. During the visit, a check is made twice daily to ascertain that the inmates are in the building. At night, the building is locked from the outside.

Katrina and I arrived for the visit early in the morning. Leading us to the visitation building, the prison staff searched us (this was probably the first time Katrina had ever been frisked, although she had been present for two searches involving police in balaclavas), and they checked the groceries we’d brought. Everything was done politely and carefully. After that, Taisiya was led in.

Katrina glued herself to her mother for three days straight. She was jealous of every moment I had Taisiya’s attention. Katrina followed her mother from room to room, even to the kitchen and back. Taisiya promised her daughter she would be released soon. We only talked about what our life would be like after her release.

In moments when Katrina was either distracted or sleeping, we had the chance to talk. Taisiya told me all about her life in the colony, about being transported to the penal colony and her hunger strike in solitary confinement at the Tver pre-trial detention center. It had been impossible to drink the tap water in the cell at the detention center because of its high level of chlorine. Thus, her hunger strike was practically “dry.” As a result, upon being released from solitary confinement, her kidneys started to shut down.

Taisiya recounted the story of her arrest, and how Center “E” (“anti-extremism”) police, led by Savchenkov, visited her in jail, demanding she testify against herself and me as well as squealing on the [Other Russia] party. They threatened to deprive her of parental rights and put Katrina in an orphanage.

We were able to discuss the plans for appealing the verdict. Taisiya has high hopes for the supervisory appeal and the complaint to the European Court of Human Rights.

The most difficult time for Taisiya came when two days had passed, and only one remained before she had to return to the penal colony. That was when Katrina, just like an adult, in turn tried to calm Taisiya down, explaining to her mother that she would soon be released and telling her about how good everything would be when that happened. It wasn’t a scene for the faint of heart.

The next morning, the guards took Taisiya away. Katrina and I were searched and escorted to the penal colony gates.

P.S. Taisiya really was sent to the hospital in Torzhok on the night of February 16. She managed to write a letter where she said that, “As it turns out, there is no endocrinologist in Torzhok. And they’re not going to affirm my request, anyway. It’s all the doing of the Federal Penitentiary Service.”

On February 26, journalists were able to get in touch with [Taisiya’s] lawyers, who told them that the Smolensk Regional Court had refused to reexamine Taisiya’s verdict, but had not even informed her lawyers of this decision.

Translated by Bela Shayevich and Chtodelat News

The Osipova Verdict: “They Want to Murder Taisiya”

limonov-eduard.livejournal.com
Eduard Limonov
August 28, 2012
They Want to Murder Taisiya

I was running errands in the car when I heard about the Taisiya Osipova verdict. They gave her a savage sentence. Eight years behind bars for a women with diabetes is the death penalty.

They want to murder Taisiya.

Who among them is the chief sadist and flayer, I don’t know. Did Smolensk propose eight years, and Moscow said, “Well, we don’t mind”? That’s most likely how it was.

It is noticeable how the sentences given to National Bolsheviks are harsher than simple reprisals. Many times over.

We will not forgive.

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www.huffingtonpost.com

Taisiya Osipova Jailed: Wife Of Russian Opposition Sentenced To 8 Years In Prison
By NATALIYA VASILYEVA 08/28/12

MOSCOW — A Russian opposition activist was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison in a review of her drug-related case – twice as long as prosecutors had requested in a ruling that drew immediate opposition outrage.

Taisiya Osipova and her supporters have maintained that police planted four grams of heroin in her home in 2010 in revenge for her refusal to testify against her husband, Sergei Fomchenkov, also a senior figure in The Other Russia opposition movement. A witness for the defense testified at the trial that he saw a police officer put the drugs in Osipova’s apartment.

Osipova had originally been sentenced to 10 years, but a higher court ordered a review of her case.

Tuesday’s unexpectedly harsh verdict comes two weeks after three members of punk provocateur band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in prison for a surprise anti-Vladimir Putin performance in Moscow’s main cathedral. The decision sparked criticism in Russia and abroad as disproportionate.

It’s also being viewed as an ominous sign ahead of the trial of 11 people who were arrested on suspicion of taking part in clashes with the police at a protest rally in May this year.

Eduard Limonov, the leader of The Other Russia party, told Interfax on Tuesday that “this verdict is not only a political one, it’s also terrifying revenge.”

Fomchenkov reported the verdict on his Twitter account. The court in Smolensk was not available to confirm the verdict.

Prosecutors had asked for four years in prison for Osipova.

Osipova, 28, has been in jail since her arrest in 2010 and was originally sentenced to 10 years in prison in December 2011. A higher court in February overturned that decision, ordering the review of her case, while Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview that the sentence was too harsh.

Left-wing opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov described the verdict in his Twitter as “a triumph of lawlessness and cynicism.”

Osipova was one of the most prominent names on a list of people activists described as political prisoners submitted to then-President Medvedev in February.

Mikhail Fedotov, head of the presidential council on human rights, in an interview with the Interfax news agency on Tuesday described the verdict as a “legal mistake.”

Like her husband Osipova is a member of The Other Russia, although she hasn’t been active since her daughter was born in 2006.

Opposition activists have staged regular protests against Osipova’s prosecution, arguing that charges against Osipova were aimed to pressure her for information on her husband, Limonov’s right hand man, who was trying to get the movement officially registered as a political party at the time of her arrest.

Osipova’s supporters also said that witnesses confirmed police discovering drugs at Osipova’s place were members of pro-Kremlin youth groups.

Police searched Fomchenkov’s Moscow apartment shortly before Osipova’s arrest in connection with “an economic case,” details of which were never communicated to the Other Russian functionary.

Osipova’s lawyers on Tuesday pledged to appeal the ruling. The Other Russia activists are planning one-man pickets across Moscow on Saturday to protest the verdict.

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politzeki.tumblr.com

16 August 2012
Dreaming of justice: The Taisiya Osipova case turns into an absurd and cruel farce
By Oksana Chelysheva
Translated by Jonathan Bridges

Roughly a year ago, in one of my articles on the fate of Taisiya Osipova, ‘the Smolensk hostage’, I wrote about the case’s media coverage. At that point in time there were few publications that even hinted at fact that the case had been fabricated.

At the time the situation was being covered on a site created in Taisiya’s defence. The site was maintained largely by Sergei Fomchenkov, Taisiya’s husband. The blog of the art group (‘War’) was still the only source of information about the case. One of the members of the group, Leonid Nikolaev, still managed to pay occasional visits to Smolensk, where Taisya’s absurd trial, presided over by Judge Dvoryanchikov, started to unfold like a scene from Homer. I would like to offer my thanks to the international network of human rights organisations – the World Organization Against Torture – who even at this early stage took up Taisiya Osipova’s case and began questioning the Russian authorities on a regular basis.

A lot has changed in the last year.

Taisiya Osipova’s case has been covered by practically all of the Russian media, with the exception of Rossiyskaya Gazeta (‘The Russian Newspaper’). Even foreign media has managed to keep up with the case. Over the last year, articles about Taisiya have appeared in respectable American, Italian, Spanish, Slovakian and Finnish publications.

A campaign started by Maksim Gromov to support political prisoners’ children played a crucial role in the matter. The story of Katrine, Taisiya and Sergei’s daughter, told in photographs by Vladmimir Telegin, found sympathy amongst many people. In the spring, Vladimir Telegin put on a photo exhibition of Katrine with members of the Voina group and Yuri Shevchuk in Helsinki.

A campaign emerged from the positive response to this modest exhibition. As part of the campaign, photographs were sent to the President of the Russian Federation in the form of postcards containing short demands on Katrine’s behalf, such as ‘Let my mummy go’. Influential human rights organisations were not responsible for the hundreds of photographs. The whole thing was started by one Finnish woman who heard Taisiya Osipova’s story at the exhibition.

Information concerning Taisiya’s case even reached Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president at the time. When Medvedev was asked about Osipova at a meeting with students from MGU (Moscow State University), it emerged that the president had heard this surname in context before: “Ah, yes, sometimes rather severe sentences are given”.

The presidential council on human rights, headed by Mikhail Fedotov, has put Osipova’s name on a list of persons eligible for pardoning. On Medvedev’s orders, the Prosecutor General’s office checked all thirty cases. But, given the way these checks are normally carried, our confidence in them has been reduced to zero. Nevertheless, in Osipova’s case, the procedure adopted by the prelimary investigation and that implemented by the lower court were both so odious that even the Prosecutor General’s office was obliged to acknowledge “the obvious flaws and violations in the conduct of the preliminary investigation”.

This was followed by a statement from Medvedev in which he said he was “prepared to consider the possibility of pardoning Osipova on the condition that she write the request for pardon herself and plead guilty”. Notice the president’s wording, himself being a law graduate and a campaigner against legal nihilism.

He deliberately stressed the necessity for Osipova to plead guilty, which is not a legal requirement.

Since the very first day of her detainment in November 2010, Taisaya has refused to plead guilty, insisting that she did not commit the crime she is charged with. Having refused such mercy, Taisiya’s decision has undoubtedly been an agonising one. Bargaining with her conscience was something that she could not do and living with this slanderous lie would have been practically impossible for her.

On 15 February 2012, the penal chamber of the Smolensk Regional Court, made up of chairman Bezykornov and Judges Rumyantseva and Elizarova, revoked Judge Dvoryanchikov’s decision to sentence Osipova to ten years’ imprisonment. The case was sent to the Zadneprovsky District Court (where Osipova had previously been sentenced to ten years) for re-examination by a different set of judges.

Roughly a month after Judge Dvoryanchikov‘s ridiculous sentence had been revoked, I received a letter from a colleague of mine. In response to a question on how to free Taisiya, he wrote: “The case has after all been won. Even the president spoke about her. The sentence has been revoked. Is there any point in making a fuss about it?”

Yes, there is. There is every reason to make a fuss about it. As long as Taisiya Osipova is behind bars, the case will not have been won. Can her defence campaign be called a success if a new judge shouts at the lawyers and at Osipova herself during the court sittings? Taisiya Osipova is still in Pre-trial Detention Centre (SIZO) no. 1, in Smolensk. The possibility of another ‘guilty’ verdict cannot be ruled out entirely.

Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find people to sit in on Osipova’s court case.

Summer 2012 was marked by disasters and violence. After the inauguration of President Vladimir Putin, the number of political prisoners has been increasing not by the day but by the hour. Some of those who used to go to Smolensk to sit in on the hearings at Zadneprovsky Court are now being investigated in connection with other criminal matters themselves.

Appeals made to EU embassies and international human rights organisations for assistance in monitoring the court proceedings in Smolensk have not yet been successful. Either the court hearings coincided with Christmas and Easter, which made immediate decision making impossible, or strange explanations were given in response to Fomchenkov’s appeals as to why this or that “organisation did not have the financial and human resources to send a diplomatic mission to Smolensk”.

Fine then, let’s put it another way. Having the available resources is difficult. But there are documents available: court rulings, appeal court rulings, publications by journalists who have managed to get far away from Moscow and Smolensk. Ultimately, it would be possible to meet with Taisiya Osipova’s lawyers and find out what is happening and why an increasing number of people, familiar with the evidence put forward, think that Taisiya Osipova is not only an innocent victim of arbitrary rule but also a prisoner of conscience.

On 31 December 2010, the public prosecutor of the Zadneprovsky district of Smolensk signed Taisiya Osipova’s bill of indictment: “In Smolensk, at some point before 21 October 2010, a precise date and time were not established during the preliminary investigation, Osipova intentionally and of her own accord sought out an individual, unidentified during the course of the investigation, from whom she unlawfully obtained a narcotic substance, namely heroin, on a regular basis in an unidentified location with intent to illegally sell. She subsequently kept the aforementioned substance at her place of residence out of mercenary interest in material gain by dealing in narcotics. . .”

In other words, Osipova was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment on the basis of this “drug dealer”. The time and place of the crime have not been established, nor has the identity of the drug dealer. Osipova received time not for drug dealing but for having “the specific intent to commit a crime”. Bearing in mind that proving intent is one of the most difficult tasks of any investigation, we can consider the employees of the Smolensk Centre “E”, who organised and handled Taisiya Osipova’s case, to be true investigatory champions.

They put this woman behind bars based solely on the fact that she had “the specific intent to commit a crime”.

The same people’s testimonies make up the evidential basis: the ‘anonymous’ witnesses Ludmila Timchenkova and Denis Zvyagin (their names were changed supposedly to protect their identity), Semenistova and Kazakova, members of the pro-Kremlin youth organisation Nashi, and Savchenkov, a police investigator from the Centre for Combating Extremism, otherwise known as Centre “E”.

At the very start of this cynical epic, Captain of Justice S. A. Ivanova, an investigator for the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Smolensk, compiled a list of people who needed to be brought in for questioning. And a separate comment reads: “There are no witnesses for the defence.”

It all seemed so simple for the staff at Centre “E”: no one will ever notice that the witnesses and court have been trained to perform like circus animals. They had every chance of pulling off ‘Action Revenge’ on Fomchenkov smoothly and swimmingly.

It was apparent, even at this point, that both the search protocol and list of ‘witnesses’ were nothing but a pure fabrication. For a start, the search protocol states that Taisiya was home alone when the search was carried out – yet the video footage clearly shows another person in handcuffs sitting next to Taisiya. This person is Anton Mandrik. But for Centre “E” he was just another superfluous detail, which is why police investigator Savchenkov asked him ‘to sit quietly if he [didn’t] want to end up behind bars as well.’ When the court asked about witness Mandrik, Savchenkov simply said that he had forgotten about him.

At the hearing on 11 July 2011, Taisiya Osipova said that while her property was being searched on 23 November 2010, she had asked Savchenkov: “When will this drama end?”, to which he had replied: “Get your husband to come here and then this drama will end.”

Savchenkov made sure that there was as much drama as possible. His statements are included in Taisiya’s indictment: “Since I had police information about the fact that there were three fighting dogs in the house and that Osipova possessed weapons which she could have used at any time without warning, we decided to arrest Osipova with the help of the special forces unit.”

Evidently, Savchenkov had done his homework on Osipova and had reason to be wary of entering her property, where he ran more than just the risk of being hit in the face with a bunch of carnations, as happened to the lucky governor of Smolensk. And that’s why this terrorist-fighting ‘hero’ went into Osipova’s house with the protection of the special forces unit, shielding himself from the threatening National Bolshevik ‘drug dealer’ who knows how to use a gun, how to throw a punch and who was surrounded by French bulldogs, almost as if she were surrounded by a stone wall.

As for the three fighting dogs, the dog experts from Centre “E” are clearly useless. Only a complete idiot would try to pass off a French bulldog as a security threat . . . to his trousers. They also forgot the potential danger posed by the bunny rabbits Taisiya was holding and the ferret in the kitchen with its sharp teeth.

A list of the following confiscated items figures in the search protocol of Osipova’s property: five bags of heroin, ten syringes, a bottle containing the residue of a dark-coloured liquid, mobile phones, a computer and also a marked 500-rouble note. It is significant that according to the case evidence, the search was a result of a routine test purchase, which included Timchenkova giving Osipova 3000 marked roubles.

Sergei Fomchenkov commented on this mysterious detail: “The notes weren’t even marked. According to police files, the police just wrote down the serial numbers beforehand. If they had really wanted to catch the dealer, the notes would have been covered in a special substance which leaves traces on the hands of whoever handles it. That would have been objective evidence, but this was not what was done, since no drugs were actually sold. A single note had been put in the same set of chest of drawers that the drugs had been put in. According to the records on the test purchase, Timchenkova supposedly gave 3000 roubles to Osipova, in the following denominations: ten 100-rouble bills, two 500-rouble bills and one 1000-rouble bill – 13 bills in total. The search protocol states that only one 500-rouble bill was found at Taisiya’s address. The police investigator and attesting witnesses testified that no one had entered or left the address in the interval between the drugs being purchased and the property being searched. At the previous hearing, police investigator Smolin was asked: ‘What happened to the remaining twelve banknotes?’, to which he responded: ‘I don’t know. Perhaps she ate them.’ It would be funny if the situation weren’t so tragic. A question occurred to me: if Taisiya ate twelve banknotes, then why did she put the thirteenth one in the chest of drawers. That’s black humour for you.”

The regional court of appeal decided that both the investigation and the lower court had failed to overcome the obvious contradictions. The forensic report from 24 November 2010 states that the confiscated substance was heroin. However, the five bags confiscated during the search and the bags of drugs, which Timchenkova and Zavyagin – the undisclosed witnesses – supposedly got from Osipova during ‘the test purchases’ organised by Centre “E” from October to November, contained different kinds of heroin – both natural as well as synthetically manufactured. There is no explination as to why the forensic examination of the substance only took place after Taisiya’s arrest and not immediately after Zvyagin and Timchenkova had supposedly obtained it from Osipova.

The anaylsis of this substance was conducted by forensic experts without any witnesses present and at a time when it was being transferred from bag to bag. This suggests that the evidence was tampered with.

The investigators asked the team of experts carrying out technical assessments on the confiscated computer a question, the relevance of which is not entirely obvious to a narcotics investigation: “Does the computer in question contain information regarding the activity of the National Bolshevik Party which might incite national and religious discord, and furthermore, are there any symbols on the computer which bear resemblance to the Nazi swatstika or any corruption of it (most frequently used words and phrases: illegal immigrants, Russians, illegal residents, ‘Strategy-31’, ‘The Dissenters’ March’, manifestation, protest) . . . ?”

There was no clarification as to why police investigator Savchenkov helped himself to some of Limonov’s books during the search, which he also subsequently ‘forgot’ about just as he had forgotten about the witness for the defence, Anton Mandrik.

On 12 January 2010, Judge Voitenko of Smolensk’s regional court signed a court order allowing Osipova’s phone calls to be monitored. The order says, among other things, that: “The information we have acquired tells us that Osipova is Sergei Fomchenkov’s wife, through whom he is passing on monetary funds in order to set up a National Bolshevik Party in Smolensk.”

On 31 August 2010 the same judge signed another court order allowing Ospiva’s phone to be tapped. This one is much more informative: “Osipova uses the illegal revenue she gains from dealing drugs to help fund demonstrations planned and carried out by former supporters of the National Bolshevik Party, including the opposition party The Other Russia.”

Nonetheless, no explanation was given as to why the judges refused the defence’s request to play the phone call recordings in court. Moreover, this was not the first time the defence had submitted similar requests but in fact the fifth time: 3 May 2011, 11 August 2011, 26 August 2011, and 21 October 2011. Evidently, the Zadneprovsky Court knows perfectly well that allowing Taisiya’s telephone conversations to be presented to the court in detail would cause quite some embarrassment.

At least then we would have proof that on 22 November 2010, the day before her arrest, Taisiya received a threatening phone call from her acquaintance Khovrenkova, whom Osipova suspects of later becoming ‘witness Timchenkova’, warning her of the impending incident involving the drugs.

The regional court of appeal did not pay particular attention to the ‘anonymous witnesses’ for three reasons. First, the panel of judges did not believe that the witnesses’ “life and safety would be endangered”, as Grani.ru reports. Second, Taisiya Osipova recognised in ‘Timchenkova’ the drug addict Khovrenkova. Third, Osipova saw ‘witness’ Zvyagin owing to an oversight on behalf of the staff at the Department of the Federal Drug Control Service and said that she had never seen the man in her life. The court seriously breached procedural measures by allowing the ‘witness’ to see Osipova in the dock before confirming the defendant’s identity in court. The panel of judges noted in their decision to revoke Osipova’s sentence that “under section 5, article 278 of the Russian Federation Code of Criminal Procedure, the court shall have the right to conduct its cross-examination without making public the identity of the witness to protect his or her safety under conditions, precluding a visual observation of the witness, but which do not, at the same time, exclude his or her immediate participation in the trial. The cross-examination of the anonymous witnesses was carried out in the absence of the accused and thus prevented her from exercising her right to defence.”

The panel noted that significant contradictions in the testimonies given by witnesses for the prosecution had not been resolved, in particular descrepancies in the description of the woman from whom Timchenkova obtained the drugs. The phone calls of those supposedly present at the police search at Osipova’s address have been traced. They prove that it would have been physically impossible for them to have been there at this time, since mobile phone tracking reveals that they were on the other side of town.

The crime and the search protocol were not the only things falsified in Osipova’s case. Documents were also completely falsified, for example the local police officer Pisarev’s character reference for Osipova. Pisarev himself testified in court that he could not possibly have signed the character reference because he had already resigned from the police force when it was issued.

What we have here now are grounds to take legal action against police investigator Savchenkov and his colleagues not only for planting drugs and for the theft of six of Limonov’s books but also for giving false evidence in court and forgery. But in Russia we can only keep dreaming of justice and this time, in Osipova’s case, these dreams are getting smaller and smaller.

Source: Kasparov.ru

Editor’s Note. This translation has been slightly edited for republication here.

Backlash: Other Russia Activist Taisiya Osipova Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison

Taisiya Osipova

lenta.ru
December 30, 2011
Backlash: Other Russia Activist Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison
Ilya Azar

As 2011 came to a close, Other Russia activist Taisiya Osipova was sentenced in Smolensk to ten years in prison for the sale and possession of narcotics. Osipova, who suffers from several serious diseases and has a five-year-old daughter, was kept in detention for over a year before hearing the verdict. The opposition and human rights activists consider the Osipova case political and symbolic for Russia.

“After Taisiya Osipova’s verdict, the opposition’s struggle for power in Russia has turned into a struggle against pure evil, into a fight on the side of good,” wrote Sergei Aksenov, a former National Bolshevik and a leader of The Other Russia, on his Twitter account. And he’s not the only one: on the evening of December 29, the Runet seethed with indignation, and the word “bitches,” addressed to the authorities in general and the judiciary in particular, was one of the mildest epithets.

According to oppositionists, the main representative of evil in the Taisiya Osipova case is Yevgeny Dvoryanchikov, judge of Smolensk’s Zadneprovsky District Court. It was he who on December 29 sentenced Osipova to ten years in prison for possession and sale of drugs under Article 228.1, Paragraph 3 of the Criminal Code. The fact that Osipova has diabetes, pancreatitis and chronic pyelonephritis, and that she has a five-year-old daughter, Katrine, made no impression on him. (The World Organization Against Torture had twice appealed to Russian authorities to release Osipova.)

True, Dvoryanchikov still did not have not an easy time making the decision: he retired to chambers to write the verdict at twelve noon, returning to the courtroom at around midnight (he began reading out the verdict at 11:15 p.m.). It is not clear why Dvoryanchikov took so long to write the verdict and what was going in his chambers during this time. Other Russia leader and writer Eduard Limonov has already labeled the judge’s actions “vile” and an attempt to conceal the verdict from the public.

The general public does not know about the Osipova case, despite the fact this past summer (when the verdict was supposed to have been rendered), Other Russia activists staged a sit-down strike over several days at the Solovki Stone in downtown Moscow. The police confronted the strikers as best they could, surrounding the square and detaining the harmless activists as they made their way to the stone.

Osipova was arrested on November 23, 2010, when five packets containing an unknown substance and marked bills were found in her home. Osipova was charged with possession of narcotics possession under Article 228.1, Paragraph 3 of the Criminal Code.

According to police investigators, Osipova had sold four grams of heroin for three thousands rubles, and an additional nine grams were found in her home. Defense attorneys and journalists were alarmed by the fact that the witnesses during the controlled buys [staged by police] were three young women associated with pro-Kremlin youth movements. At the same time, the [packets containing the] seized substance were not fingerprinted: defense attorneys are thus certain that the heroin was planted in Taisiya’s home.

Other Russia activists have always maintained that the Osipova case is utterly political. Her husband, Sergei Fomchenkov, is a member of The Other Russia’s executive committee. Osipova claimed that the police investigators who detained her told her directly that they were not interested in her, but in her husband, who lives in Moscow. Fearing arrest, Fomchenkov never once traveled from the capital to Smolensk to visit his arrested wife.

Alexander Averin, a representative of The Other Russia and ex-press secretary of the banned National Bolshevik Party, told Lenta.Ru that police had immediately promised to give her ten years if she did not testify against Fomchenkov. The guilty verdict was not a surprise for the opposition, although few had expected such a harsh sentence (despite the fact that the prosecutor had asked the judge to sentence Osipova to twelve years and eight months in prison).

“I see Dvoryanchikov’s face: he knows there is nothing to the charges. He’s just carrying out orders. It’s not his decision, but he’s an ambitious careerist, and doesn’t want problems. So I just have to get to the appeals stage and keep working,” Osipova herself said in an interview with Grani.Ru in December.

Svetlana Sidorkina, an attorney with the human rights association Agora who, along with Smolensk lawyer Natalya Shaposhnikova, served as Osipova’s defense counsel, told Lenta.Ru that, in the wake of the verdict, defense attorneys intend both to file an appeal and petition the [European Court of Human Rights in] Strasbourg. Sidorkina has no illusions about the prospects of an appeal. “We definitely hoped for the best, but we also didn’t rule out such a [harsh] outcome. I assumed that the sentence would be six and a half years, while Shaposhnikova [thought it would be] eight, but unfortunately we both guessed wrong,” said the lawyer.

The Other Russia now intends to fight for Osipova, and is counting on public support. In December 2011, civil society in Russia, especially in Moscow, suddenly and powerfully made itself heard. Tens of thousands of people came out for the fair elections rallies on Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Boulevard, and almost a thousand people came to a protest in defense of [arrested] Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov.

“This is a slap in the face of civil society. People came out and demanded honesty and justice from the authorities, and this was the response — Judge Borovkova, the arrests of Udaltsov and Nikitenko, and, to top it all off, a ten-year sentence for Osipova. The state has recovered its senses and delivered a counterblow. I wonder how society will react to this — will it go celebrate the New Year or will it defend the freedom of political prisoners?” Averin put it emotionally last night.

He added that the traditional Strategy 31 rally on Triumfalnaya Square on December 31 would be dedicated to Taisia and political prisoners in general. “Lots of people are indignant over this verdict. Different people have been calling me who weren’t planning to come out on December 31 but who have now decided to go,” said Averin. On the night of December 30, there in fact were appeals on the Internet to go to the unauthorized rally in support of Osipova on Triumfalnaya Square.

A year ago on December 31, Boris Nemtsov and Ilya Yashin, leaders of the Solidarity movement, were arrested at a Strategy 31 rally. They both rang in the New Year behind bars: Nemtsov was sentenced to fifteen days in jail, while Yashin was sentenced to five. In 2009, Sergei Mokhnatkin was arrested during a New Year’s Eve rally: he was later sentenced to two and a half years in prison for [allegedly] assaulting a police officer.

It is a big question whether “enraged city dwellers” will take to Triumfalnaya Square over the harsh verdict handed to ex-National Bolshevik Osipova. Or are rigged elections the only thing that, for the time being, can really enrage them?

Photo courtesy of Free Voina. See their coverage of the Osipova case here (in Russian) and here (in English).

Waging War (Sergey Chernov interviews Oleg Vorotnikov)

The St. Petersburg Times
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Waging War
Now in hiding, the award-winning, politically minded Voina art group is preparing a new stunt
By Sergey Chernov

The state’s pressure on the radical art group Voina — famous for its spectacular stunts spoofing the Russian authorities and the police — has increased in recent days, despite the broad recognition the group garnered after winning an important state-sponsored art prize, invitations to high-profile international art events, and the worldwide attention they have attracted.

Late last week, a local Petersburg court confiscated the bail money deposited for the release of Oleg Vorotnikov, the group’s de facto leader. The money (300,000 rubles, or $10,800) had been donated by British street artist Banksy from the proceeds of a special print sale in support of the group’s arrested members. The court ruled that Vorotnikov should be detained and placed in a pre-trial detention center for two months; it also issued an international search warrant for him. A national search warrant for Vorotnikov had been issued in May.

Despite attempts by officials to exclude Voina from the list of nominees, the Innovation Prize was awarded to them for “Dick Captured by the FSB” – a huge image of a penis painted on Liteiny Bridge, near the local headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB), in June 2010. The artists, however, are facing criminal prosecution for another stunt, “Palace Revolution,” which reportedly involved the overturning of one or more police cars in St. Petersburg in September 2010.

According to the artists, the action was a metaphorical demand for reform of the Interior Ministry and an end to police lawlessness.

In November 2010, Voina’s Vorotnikov and Leonid Nikolayev were arrested in a Moscow apartment and taken in a bus, handcuffed and with plastic bags over their heads, to St. Petersburg, where they were charged with criminal mischief motivated by hatred toward a particular social group (in this case, the police) and remanded to a pre-trial detention center for three months. The offence is punishable by up to seven years in prison.

After Vorotnikov and Nikolayev were released on bail in February, the group became seriously involved in civil rights activism by helping prisoners whose sentences or lengthy pre-trial detentions appear to be connected with their political activism.

The artists have used the remainder of Banksy’s donation (4.5 million rubles, or $160,735) to help a number of political prisoners such as Taisia Osipova, a woman from Smolensk, in western Russia, who has been charged with drugs possession. Her supporters claim that police planted the drugs they allegedly found in her apartment during a search. Osipova is in her ninth month of pre-trial detention despite the prosecution’s dubious case, and despite the fact that she suffers from diabetes and has a young daughter.

Human rights organizations see her imprisonment as an attempt to halt the political work of her husband, Sergei Fomchenkov, an activist with The Other Russia opposition party.

Voina members also did a photo session with Osipova’s five-year old daughter Katrina to raise public awareness of the case. They have sent various sums from Banksy’s donation to support other imprisoned activists, including Petersburg anti-fascist Rinat Sultanov, who was sentenced to two years in prison in April for his alleged role in a street brawl with neo-Nazis in November 2008.

Oleg Vorotnikov and Katrina, daughter of the imprisoned Taisia Osipova. Photo by Vladimir Telegin

Earlier this month, Voina donated 400,000 rubles ($14,400), the entire sum of their Innovation Prize money, to the Agora Human Rights Association, a Moscow-based organization whose lawyers have provided legal assistance to the group and other activists.

A new criminal case against Vorotnikov was launched in April after he and his wife, Voina member Natalya “Kozlyonok” Sokol, were arrested during a March 31 opposition rally. He faces up to five years in prison for alleged disorderly conduct, violence against a police officer, and insulting a police officer.

Earlier this month, Sokol was also named as a suspect in the case. Investigators claim she insulted a police officer, an offence punishable by up to one year of correctional labor. Vorotnikov and Sokol have a two-year-old son, Kasper.

Despite this persecution, Vorotnikov — who is now in hiding — said in a recent exclusive interview with The St. Petersburg Times that through its clandestine practices Voina has helped art to stay alive and brought it back into the limelight.

After winning the Innovation Prize, Voina was harshly criticized by sections of the media and the public. What is your reaction?

I don’t expect sympathy toward our art from anybody. And I’m always surprised when people say they like Voina. I then take a closer look at those people. Almost all of them live hard lives, and many have grief, losses, and disappointments in their past. The passions that have injured those people! But they’re still full of hope. These are the most interesting people in the world. It’s their scars and defects that make them lovable. I can imagine how, during sex, they touch and kiss the scars on each other’s bodies. There’s no other reason to love someone in this life. Kasper already has scars from the cops.

Voina’s work and political activities have unexpectedly drawn criticism from some people who see themselves as leftists.

The thing is that Voina reveals certain concealed and, say, reactionary qualities in people. I agree with observers who have noted that, compared to Voina, many leftists are not leftists at all, but rather centrists, maybe even rightward-leaning centrists. Before Voina, they were extremely leftist, leftist radicals, and then suddenly it turned out that they were simply philistines. They’re people who live on grants and write articles, and who imitate real protest work with such activities. So with the emergence of Voina, all of a sudden they’ve moved from the left flank toward reaction.

Yes, we fight the regime, because the powers that be are philistine and narrow-minded in the same way. All their ideals begin and end with a helicopter and a villa. Then they go for two helicopters, four villas. And that’s it: they don’t go any further; their ambitions don’t soar any higher. In that sense, we are against philistines. The philistines are our enemy. The regime is just a particular problem of our war.

So the philistines have taken up arms against us: they’ve seen that we’re against them. There are a lot of philistines: all of society has become philistine; the nation has become almost wholly philistine. In this sense, our struggle is quite an idealistic one. Because everybody sees it as an attack on themselves, an attack on the cozy aspects of their lives.

The critics seem especially annoyed by the fact that you take Kasper to your stunts and protest demos.

They get so hysterical over Kasper because it’s an affront to the cozy aspects of their lives. They’re used to handing their kids over to someone else and going out to make money. For Koza (Sokol) and Kasper, it was a shock when the cops separated them for over twenty-four hours: they had never been apart for so long.

But the public object. They say, “If they’re together all the time, what do they live on? It means they’re not poor. It means they’re well-off people or bohemians.”

They can’t even imagine a different situation. That we stick together not because we have a lot of money, but for different, ideological reasons. So our life is based on that. We’re with Kasper [all the time], and so Kasper makes us bend to his life.

Now many people have begun to realize that our war is endless, that it’s broader than just a war against some absurd criminal, gangster regime. It’s more a struggle against an abnormal attitude to life.

The fact that the prize, founded by the Culture Ministry, went to “Dick Captured by the FSB” did shock and upset many people.

Everybody went into hysterics. How can this be? A dirty dick is getting a prize! It was kind of an insult to them, to their finest petit-bourgeois sensibilities.

It’s wonderful that it happened, really. This is a real slap in the face of public taste! The joke was played out to the end: it didn’t remain on the level of marginal manifestos or underground exhibitions – although we are against officialdom, of course.

The joke is that they [the public] did not see the Dick before [it was awarded the prize]. They could allow themselves to turn a blind eye to it, because it was not approved at the top.

But now it’s like matchsticks have been stuck in their eyes and they just can’t close them. In the shape of the award, of the statuette, the Dick is always before them. They cannot help but see it, even if they would be glad not to. That drives them crazy.

I think art is also didactic and has educational goals. By struggling against the authorities, we’re also educating the people. It’s all very Russian.

Can you explain your method of working illegally?

It’s very important to work outside the institutions. They’re trying now to herd art into institutions, and many leftists such as [artist Anatoly] Osmolovsky welcome it. They simply think that the main problem of contemporary Russian art is the fact that we are not educated, that we have no degree programs in [contemporary] art.

But we show that the opposite is the case: that our salvation lies exactly in the fact that we don’t have these degrees. That we are cut off, not tied down, that we don’t walk like cows or calves on a lead. If we were on a leash, we wouldn’t be able to carry out our actions in the way we have. We would do something pathetic, something “creative” in the worst sense of that word. That’s why art should try as hard as it can to stay independent — even if it’s bad for your health, even if you might wind up with a prison term. Although it might be fraught with hardships for the individual, it’s the only way for art to survive.

The authorities began to persecute artists as early as the Yeltsin years, didn’t they?

Formally, it’s true. They started to persecute Avdei [Ter-Oganyan] for hacking up icons in 1998. But now I think we have recaptured a lot of space, because contemporary art — partly because of us — makes news. Before that news came from political life, public life, war, statements by prime ministers and maybe sports.

But now art is on an equal footing. If you look at the headlines, art makes news [as much as any other topic]. I don’t think there has been anything like this since the days of Leo Tolstoy or Solzhenitsyn. Art hasn’t been a newsmaker for a long time. That is a big achievement.

Your art stunts appear to be firmly linked to a specific city.

Yes, our actions are always linked to a concrete location. It would be wrong to say that they’re universal, that they could be taken to any city and performed there. On the contrary, we arrive at a location and have a look around.

Our Moscow actions were very Moscow-oriented, like “A Cop in a Priest’s Cassock,” where I dressed up as a “priest cop” and shoplifted an expensive supermarket. There are simply no such shops in St. Petersburg, the insanely posh ones. So I went into one of those unbelievably posh supermarkets and shoplifted it. It was a very Moscow thing.

“Dick Captured by the FSB” or “Palace Revolution” could have hardly happened in Moscow.

When we’re [planning our actions], we walk around Petersburg, thinking, “This can be done here, and that can be done there.” Say, the installation in front of the Russian Museum (“Palace Revolution”) was not accidental. It’s very important that it was right in front of the entrance.

Few people have noticed that artistically it’s important that we showed that the main work of art is not inside the museum, but outside, near the entrance. It’s very important, you see? That was also decided on right on the spot.

I can hardly imagine what kind of action I would make in London. A funny thing once happened to us. We had an exhibition in Zagreb. We arrived there, and [the organizers] met us with open arms. They said, “It’s great that you came as a group. We’ve already agreed with the mayor’s office that you can do whatever your hearts desire here.” We said, “What the hell! You’ve robbed us of the chance to do an action here.”

But then I took a walk around and realized that even if they hadn’t robbed us of this chance by making an agreement with the mayor’s office, we would have been out of context there anyway.

It’s a totally different life. Our actions can’t be transplanted [to different cities] because they’re specific. The Petersburg actions are very Petersburg. The Moscow actions are very Moscow. Location is an important factor.

Does the radical form your work takes have something to do with the abnormality of the current political situation in this country?

That’s how they see our work in the West. We get letters from American universities (from students and teachers) all the time. They inform us they’re writing an honor’s thesis about our work, which they find very interesting. Then they tell us how they interpret our actions: the abnormal situation in Russia deprives people of the chance to influence events using standard protest methods like pickets whose goal is to directly identify a problem and insist that it be solved immediately. But these don’t work, and so those American students think that the need for this form — for nonstandard protests — was forced on us. It’s an interesting take, but it’s only one aspect of the problem, and somewhat superficial in my opinion. It’s more of a journalistic viewpoint.

If you go deeper, I think our actions are rooted in Russian culture. Russians are like our actions. Russians are precisely just such a people, with a touch of madness.

Your work has been described as “true Russian folk art.” Do you agree?

That’s probably right. We do try to speak on behalf of the people.

_______

en.free-voina.org/post/6755542565

World Organization Against Torture demands immediate release of Taisia Osipova

Eric Sottas, Director of the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) in Geneva, has submitted an open letter to Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, demanding a prompt medical examination and treatment for Taisia Osipova, as well as her release in the absence of valid legal charges.

OPEN LETTER TO MR. DMITRY ANATOLYEVICH MEDVEDEV
PRESIDENT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Geneva, 21 June 2011

Re: Fear for the physical and psychological integrity of Ms. Taisia Osipova – Denial of adequate medical treatment

Your Excellency,

The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), the largest Network of NGOs fighting against torture, summary executions, enforced disappearances and all other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in the world, is writing to you to express its concern about the serious health problems of Ms. Taisia Osipova, 26 years old, who is currently detained in poor conditions in the pre-trial detention centre (SIZO) 1, in Smolensk, province of Smolensk. She has been denied adequate medical treatment since her arrest on 23 November 2010, although she is suffering from multiple chronic diseases.

OMCT has been informed by reliable sources that, on 23 November 2010, around 20 policemen and officers from the Department to Combat Extremism entered violently Ms. Taisia Osipova’s house, in Smolensk. The officers reportedly went from one room to another turning everything upside down while forcing Ms. Taisia Osipova to stay with her daughter in one of the rooms. Ms. Taisia Osipova was arrested and brought to the pre-trial detention centre (SIZO) 1, in Smolensk, after the officers allegedly found five packs of greyish substance among her daughter’s clothes and a marked 500-ruble note. Upon arrival at the detention centre, she was examined by a prison doctor only for bruises on her arms that she sustained during the arrest.

Ms. Taisia Osipova was later charged with illegal distribution of drugs by the Zadneprovskiy district court, in Smolensk, and she was remanded in custody pending investigation. On 3 May 2011, the court refused to release her on bail. The following hearing has been scheduled for 21 June 2011.

Since her arrest, Ms. Taisia Osipova has reportedly suffered pressure by officers of the Department to Combat Extremism in order to obtain a confession to the alleged aforementioned crime and information about her husband, who is a senior member of the political opposition party, Drugaya Russia[1].The pressure has reportedly included threats to remove her parental right over her daughter if she refuses to collaborate; poor conditions of detention (she is held in a tiny cell with six more persons although the cell is meant for four persons, with no running water. Despite the temperature of more than 20 degrees, the windows are tightly shut up with two frames. The official Russian radio is reportedly on the whole day which makes it impossible to have any rest) and denial of adequate medical treatment, although she has been suffering from sugar diabetes, pancreatitis, chronic pyelonephritis and chronic toxic-allergic hepatitis.

According to the same information received, Ms. Taisia Osipova was diagnosed with sugar diabetes type 1 in 2005, at the Hospital of Smolensk. She had been under insulin treatment and she had been controlling her sugar level with a glucometer since then. However, she has been denied adequate medical follow-up, including the use of a glucometer, and she has not been provided a diabetic diet since her arrest. In December 2010, she reportedly suffered a hypoglycemic coma but she was neither hospitalised nor examined by a prison doctor. She was only later in the month examined by a prison doctor who reportedly diagnosed a diabetes type 2, although she had been suffering from diabetes type 1 since 2005. Ms. Taisia Osipova was informed about the result only through her lawyer, who himself got the information from the media.

Ms. Taisia Osipova had also been under medical treatment for chronic pyelonephritis, pancreatitis and chronic toxic-allergic hepatitis, diseases that were diagnosed in 2009, at the Uromed hospital, in Smolensk. Nevertheless, she has also not been provided with adequate medical care for these diseases since her arrest. After several requests to the prison administration, an ultrasound scanning was eventually conducted on Ms. Taisia Ospivoa in March 2011. However, she only received the medical report in May 2011 and it reportedly stated that she did not suffer from any of the aforementioned diseases. It is feared that the report was fabricated. OMCT has also been informed that the prison authorities have threatened Ms. Taisia Osipova with reprisals, including solitary confinement, if she would continue to complain about her conditions of detention and the lack of adequate medical treatment.

At the same time, Ms. Taisia Osipova’s lawyer reportedly presented several requests for a complete medical check-up of Ms. Taisia Osipova on the basis of Article 110, paragraph 1.1 of the Code of Criminal Procedures of the Russian Federation, which allows for the provisional release from pre-trial detention of individuals with serious health conditions (including diabetes type 1), but to no avail. Ms. Taisia Osipova’s lawyer subsequently filed a lawsuit before the Leninskiy district court of Smolensk. On 16 June 2011, the court reportedly ordered the prison administration to ensure a medical examination of Ms. Taisia Osipova. To date, no such medical examination was carried out.

The International Secretariat of OMCT is concerned about the physical and psychological integrity of Ms. Taisia Osipova. OMCT has been informed that Ms. Taisia Osipova’s health has deteriorated. She has lost weight and suffers from accrue pain in the kidneys area. She has also reportedly developed allergy to some unidentified source. OMCT fears that adequate medical examination and treatment are being denied to Ms. Taisia Osipova to put pressure on her. OMCT is concern also about her conditions of detention and the circumstances of her arrest.

OMCT recalls that the Russian Federation is legally bound to effectively ensure the physical and psychological integrity of all persons deprived of liberty in accordance with regional and international human rights law, and in particular, the European Convention on Human Rights, the recommendations of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.

Accordingly, OMCT calls on the competent authorities to ensure that Ms. Taisia Osipova is promptly examined by independent doctors and that she receives adequate medical treatment. OMCT also urges the competent authorities to release her in the absence of valid legal charges and judicial process consistent with international legal standards, or if such charges exist, bring her before an impartial and competent tribunal and guarantee her procedural rights at all times.

OMCT hopes that the concerns expressed in this letter will receive the attention they deserve.

Yours sincerely

Eric Sottas

Secretary General, OMCT

[1] Drugaya Russia is a non-registered party that was created on the basis of the coalition under the same name after it fell apart. The coalition was the moving force of Dissenters’ Marches held in the period of 2006 to 2008.