Person of the Week: Denis Bakholdin

posted 26 Jun 2017, 10:11 by Rights in Russia   [ updated 26 Jun 2017, 11:00 ]
On 21 June 2017, the website Human Rights in Ukraine published an article by Halya Coynash highlighting the plight of the Moscow activist Denis Bakholdin.  As Halya Coynash reports, Denis Bakholdin had been living in Kiyv since the end of 2014. In Moscow he had been a participant in a number of protests against war in Ukraine and in support of political prisoners. He was detained on a number of occasions. He was jailed for 10 days after taking part in an anti-war protest on 4 March, 2014, shortly after Russia invaded Crimea. In October 2014 he was detained in central Moscow wearing a mask similar to President Putin, wearing striped prison clothes and carrying a placard that read 'war criminal’ [for which he was not charged]. 

According to Denis Bakholdin's mother, Nadezhda Bakholdina, she was officially told on 17 March 2017 that her son had been arrested in Russia 'while trying to illegally cross the Russian-Ukrainian border.' He is now being held in a pre-trial detention centre in Bryansk. According to Human Rights in Ukraine, the lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina has said that Denis Bakholdin has been charged with 'involvement in an extremist society (under Article 282.1 § 2 of the Russian criminal code).'  Nadezhda Bakholdina has said that Denis was subjected to torture after he was detained: 'She has only recently, on June 5, been allowed to see her son , who told her that he had been chained with handcuffs to a radiator, beaten and kicked to get him to "confess" to being a member of Right Sector.' Halya Coynash also reports that Nadezhda Bakholdina says her home was searched by FSB agents at the end of May 'and the hard drive from her computer taken away.'
Photo of Denis Bakholdin: Human Rights in Ukraine

Source:
Halya Coynash, 'Putin critic living in Ukraine seized, tortured and jailed in Russia,' Human Rights in Ukraine, 21 June 2017


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