Deathbed Visit: Detained Russian Activist Finally Allowed To See Dying Daughter

A Russian teenager died shortly after her mother, a detained activist affiliated with the Open Russia civil society group, was finally allowed to visit her in the hospital.

Aleksei Pryanishnikov, a lawyer for Open Russia, quoted relatives of Anastasia Shevchenko as saying that she was allowed access to her daughter in a hospital in Rostov-on-Don on the morning of January 31 before the 17-year-old passed away.

Doctors at the clinic had initially prevented Shevchenko from entering the intensive care unit where her eldest daughter was being treated, although Russian law allows direct relatives to visit their loved ones in intensive-care rooms, according to the MBKh-Media online news group.

Shevchenko arrived at the hospital late on January 30, after the Russian authorities temporarily released her from house arrest to enable her to visit her ailing child, who had been hospitalized earlier in the day.

The move came after a local court denied the activist’s request to have her house arrest lifted.

Shevchenko now has to be back to her house by 6 p.m. on February 1.

Shevchenko’s daughter, whose name was not given, was said to be in a special boarding school for children suffering from serious medical conditions.

Shevchenko has two other children.

Open Russia founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former Russian oil tycoon living in exile, expressed his "deep condolences" to the activist on Twitter.

She was charged with collaborating with a so-called “undesirable” foreign organization" and placed under house arrest for two months on January 23.

Human Rights Watch has called the case a “blatant attack on freedom of association in Russia.”