INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russian prison authorities moved the jailed Gulag historian Yury Dmitriyev to a penalty cell for presumably breaching workout guidelines at
the penal nest where he is being held, the rights group Memorial said late Tuesday.Dmitriyev was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2021 on
a controversial kid sex charge his fans say was punishment for his lifes work.Memorial stated that Dmitriyev, 68, had actually been
transferred from his cell on Friday to invest six days in an isolated penalty cell for improperly performing early morning exercises
Dmitriyev spent decades locating and exhuming mass tombs of individuals eliminated under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalins rule and set up a
memorial to them in the republic of Karelia in northwestern Russia, where he headed Memorials regional branch.He dealt with a series of
trials on a variety of charges, including sexually abusing his embraced daughter
He pleaded not guilty to the charges.Dmitriyev was detained in 2016 and charged with having kid porn over several nude photos of his adopted
child that he said he took to monitor her development
A court acquitted him in 2018
That verdict was later on reversed by a higher court, and Dmitriyev was put back on trial on a brand-new charge of forced sexual acts
In 2021, he was sentenced to 15 years in a high-security penal colony.Memorial has actually declared Dmitriyev a political detainee and says
the real reason for his prosecution seems his activity in protecting the memory of political repressions
The group said that Dmitriyev has not had a single complete medical checkup since his arrest in 2016
In March 2023, he was sent out to a penalty cell for sitting down on his bed during the day since a medication made him lightheaded,
Memorial said.As part of a crackdown on civil society, Russia identified Memorial a foreign agent and ordered it to dissolve in 2021
It now operates without legal status as a rights organization.
