Mathematician Azat Miftakhov, sentenced to 6 years in the case of a broken window in the United Russia office, was sent to penal colonies for heavy labor

Azat Miftakhov, a graduate student of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University, who was sentenced to six years in a colony in the case of a broken window in the United Russia office, was sent to colonies for heavy physical work in a woodworking workshop. About this “Novaya Gazeta” told his wife Elena Gorban.

Miftakhov is serving a sentence in correctional colony No. 17 of the Kirov region (the city of Omutinsk). During the visit of the local lawyer Svetlana Frolova, he said that after two and a half years in the detention center, he was sent to rake sawdust from under the sawmill.

The anarchist’s relatives, according to Gorban, fear that this work could be chosen as a tactic of pressure on Miftakhov.

Former political prisoner Ivan Astashin, who served almost 10 years in prison, in his Telegram channel compared such work with torture.

“I don’t know what is happening at the production facility in Omutninskaya IK-17 – the hood for sucking sawdust has broken down there, or it is completely absent, so that the prisoners have no strength left to defend their rights. But I will say one thing for sure – it is very difficult for Azat there now. This is akin to torture, ”Astashin wrote.

In January 2021, the Golovinsky District Court of Moscow sentenced Miftakhov to six years in prison in a general regime colony. Other defendants in the case – Elena Gorban and Andrey Eikin – were sentenced to a suspended sentence of four and two years, respectively.

Miftakhov was detained on February 1, 2019 on suspicion of illegal manufacture of explosives. According to him, a confession was forced out of him under torture. Later, members of the Public Monitoring Commission confirmed the use of violence against Miftakhov.

A week later, the mathematician was released, but immediately detained and arrested in another criminal case – about “hooliganism committed by prior conspiracy based on political hatred.” According to the investigation, in January 2018, Miftakhov and his associates, adhering to anarchist views, smashed the window of the United Russia office in the Moscow district of Khovrino and threw a smoke bomb into the room. At the same time, there was no one in the office. The entire criminal case is based on the testimony of secret witnesses.

The Memorial Human Rights Center recognized Miftakhov as a political prisoner. Hundreds of students and teachers of Russian and foreign universities, as well as more than 2,500 mathematicians from 15 countries, spoke in support of Azat Miftakhov.