Recently Released Russian Activist Detained Again

Less than a month out of prison, Ildar Dadin, was detained again on Friday while peacefully protesting.

Dadin was outside the Federal Penitentiary Service headquarters in Moscow carrying out a one-man protest, which does not require a permit. However, officers are still allowed to ask for protesters’ documents, and Dadin declined to show his to the officers who requested them. He was then briefly detained.

Dadin was protesting for the dismissal of those he says oversaw his torture in prison in Karelia, where he was imprisoned under Russia’s controversial laws regarding protests in Dec. 2015. (The laws make some type of non-violent protests criminal. Dadin was jailed for violating those laws more than twice in 180 days. He was sentenced to three years in prison, which were shortened to two and a half years on appeal.)

The Federal Penitentiary Service claimed they investigated and found no proof of torture, but nevertheless had him transferred to another prison. And then he disappeared for over a month, sparking a Twitter campaign calling for his location to be revealed (#ГдеИльдарДадин).

His wife was allowed to speak with him after 37 days of silence in Jan. 2017. He was released the next month because, though Russia’s Supreme Court maintained Russia’s laws regarding protesters are constitutional, Dadin had been a “peaceful” protester.

In an interview the day of his release, Dadin’s wife, Anastasia Zotova, said, “I’m scared that they will free him and arrest him again the next day. I don’t want any more [of this.]”

Clearly, Zotova’s fears were not unfounded.

Photo credit: VASILY MAXIMOV/AFP/Getty Images