The trial of Yury Dmitriev, head of the Karelian branch of the Memorial Society, is currently taking place in Petrozavodsk. He is charged under Article 242.2 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code (“Use of a minor for the purposes of preparing pornography”) and Article 135 (“Perverted acts without the use of force against a minor”). The charges relate to photographs Dmitriev took of his adopted daughter, in a naked state, between the ages of three and seven. Dmitriev, a 61-year-old pensioner, has been held in a pre-trial detention centre for more than seven months. He denies the charges. Continue reading
Rights in Russia (UK)
Over 300 supporters
On 20 June, appeals in support of Yury Dmitriev were broadcast by writer Dmitry Bykov and musician Boris Grebenshchikov on the Echo Moskvy radio station. On its website the radio station also published a list of several hundred people who have signed a petition in support of the historian.
Continue readingWho is Yury Dmitriev?
… and why is he facing 15 years’ imprisonment?
The trial of historian YURY DMITRIEV began on 1 June. The hearings in Petrozavodsk, suggests journalist Maria Eismont, are “the most important thing happening in Russia today”. Because the charges are sensitive, and concern a minor, neither the press or the public can attend. Continue reading
He woke the Dragon
“Over the years of his work Yury Dmitriev became not only a splendid field researcher. He also became unique and unsurpassed as a kind of harvester of archives,” Alexander Daniel (Memorial). This led to entirely unique results. You know the phrase that everyone always quotes, that line of Akhmatova’s Requiem – “I’d like to call you all by name”, well – he alone actually did it!
Continue readingA political prosecution
In February SERGEI KRIVENKO travelled to Karelia, as a member of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, to monitor the case of YURY DMITRIEV. In early June he talked to ZOYA SVETOVA.
Continue reading
The Dmitriev Affair 