16 January 2017

Source: HRO.org

The wife of the convicted civil activist Ildar Dadin, Anastasia Zotova, has stated that the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) is refusing to allow her to visit her husband in his prison colony. Zotova wrote about it on her Facebook page and published a copy of the reply by the FSIN of Altai Krai.

It states that Dadin is being held in solitary confinement as a result of disciplinary action that was taken against him whilst he was serving his sentence in a Karelian colony.

As a result he is not to be allowed long visits, while the next brief visit may not be granted until 9 May 2017 at the earliest, reports Radio Svoboda.

Anastasia Zotova says that the head of the prison colony that holds Dadin had already given her permission over the phone for a short visit and that she and her sister-in-law even bought tickets to travel to Altai Krai.

However, she later received an official refusal from FSIN.

Ildar Dadin has been sentenced to two and a half years in a prison colony for "repeated violations of the rules on holding public gatherings". On 1 November 2016 he complained of beatings and torture in the Segezha colony in Karelia, then, on 5 December, it became known that the activist had been transported to a different correctional facility. Dadin's family did not know his whereabouts for over a month. It only emerged on 8 January that he had been taken to Prison Colony No. 5 in Altai region, described by Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova as "one of the best prison colonies".

The world's largest human rights organisation Amnesty International has recognised Ildar Dadin as a prisoner of conscience and launched an international public campaign for his immediate release.

Memorial Human Rights Centre (Moscow) has recognised Ildar Dadin as a political prisoner. (See background on the case of Ildar Dadina.)

Translated by Lindsay Munford