A human rights group in Russia says Yury Dmitriyev, the imprisoned historian and former head of the Memorial human rights group in the northwestern region of Karelia, has been placed in punitive confinement for the fourth time since mid-September at his prison in Mordovia -- an area historically associated with some of Russia’s most brutal prisons, including Soviet-era labor camps for political prisoners.
Memorial Society said in a post on Telegram that Dmitriyev was placed into punitive solitary confinement, a tiny concrete room with no toilet or running water, on November 3 for 10 days for "failing to properly greet a prison guard."
Memorial said that given Dmitriyev had already been placed in punitive confinement three times previously for unwarranted reasons, "it is clear that the pressure on [Dmitriyev] is increasing and that is a reason for alarm."
The high-profile case against Dmitriyev dates back to 2016, when the academic, who spent decades researching extrajudicial executions carried out in Karelia under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, was arrested over photographs of his foster daughter that investigators found on his computer.
The authorities said the images were pornographic, but Dmitriyev said they were made at the request of social workers concerned about the child’s physical development.
He was acquitted in April 2018, but the Karelia Supreme Court upheld an appeal by prosecutors and ordered a new trial. He was rearrested in June 2018 and then charged with a more serious crime of sexual assault against a minor.
In July 2020, Dmitriyev was sentenced to 3 1/2 years on a conviction for “violent acts of a sexual nature committed against a person under 14 years of age.”
He has rejected the accusations and case against him, insisting that he is being targeted because of his research into the crimes of Stalin's regime.
Prosecutors, who had asked for 15 years in prison in the high-profile case, said the original sentence was "too lenient" and appealed it. Dmitriyev's defense team, meanwhile, also appealed the case insisting their client was innocent.
In September 2020, weeks before he was due to be released because of time served, the Supreme Court of Karelia accepted the prosecutors' appeal and added another 9 1/2 years to Dmitriyev's sentence.
Dozens of Russian and international scholars, historians, writers, poets, and others have issued statements in support of the scholar, while the European Union has called for Dmitriyev to be released.
Dmitriyev’s research has been viewed with hostility by the government of President Vladimir Putin. Under Putin, Stalin has undergone a gradual rehabilitation, with the Russian government emphasizing his leadership of the Soviet Union while downplaying his crimes against Soviet citizens.
Under Stalin, millions of people were executed, sent to labor camps, or starved to death in famines caused by forced collectivization. During World War II, entire ethnic groups were deported to remote areas as collective punishment for alleged collaboration with the Nazis.