published: 17.08.2024
Political Prisoners in Russia: how are they counted?
Fifteen people were released from prison in Russia in a spectacular prisoner swap on 1 August, 2024, but hundreds and most likely thousands of political prisoners remain incarcerated. How many, exactly? The two well-known Russian organizations that keep count are Memorial and OVD-Info, whose estimates and criteria differ. Our colleagues explain what the numbers mean and why many more political prisoners remain unrecognized and uncounted.
How are new names added to Memorial’s list?
The group “Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial” uses a methodology developed on the basis of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly resolution “Definition of a Political Prisoner” adopted in 2012. Recognition of political prisoners is based on several formal criteria: a person will be included in the list if they are imprisoned for exercising rights and freedoms, subjected to discrimination, excessive punishment or deprived of the right to a fair trial, and provided that the person has not committed a violent act or called for hatred and violence.
Memorial experts analyze each case in detail and prepare a report substantiating that the criteria are met. If someone is not recognized as a political prisoner as a result of the evaluation, it means that not all the criteria are met or that the experts do not have sufficient evidence to make an informed decision. This does not mean, however, that the experts agree with the persecution or consider it justified.
Sergey Davidis, chairman of “Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial”:
Our estimate is deliberately minimal: we do not claim that there are 767 political prisoners in Russia, but that there are in no way fewer.
We are now working to compile a consolidated list of people whose imprisonment has clear signs of political motivation and unfairness. But so far only the most conservative assessment is available. Both what OVD-Info does and what we do are correct. But neither is sufficient to assess the scale of political repression.
And how does the OVD-Info list work?
OVD-Info maintains a database of politically motivated criminal prosecutions across Russia. Not all of these cases involve imprisonment. However, when searching the database, you can put a filter on cases where the persecuted are in detention.
The OVD-Info database includes the entire Memorial list, as well as the list maintained by the Sova research center (which analyzes cases involving charges of extremism, terrorism and related crimes and publishes those pertaining to unlawful persecution or violations of rights and freedoms). Additional information is sourced from other human rights projects, such as Pervy Otdel (Department One) and Solidarity Zone.
Another part of the data is obtained from open sources and included in the database based on the personal assessment of OVD-Info lawyers.
Denis Shedov, analyst at OVD-Info, member of the board of Memorial HRDC:
We see that in the current environment, when the number of cases grows day by day, our colleagues do not have sufficient time to analyze the whole array of cases. And so we decided that it is still important to provide the public with the information that is available.
The database includes all those prosecuted under several manifestly undemocratic laws, including the , and on charges of “repeated violation of the rules for holding public events”, which had been introduced earlier. We also look closely at cases involving charges of “offending the feelings of believers”, “justification of Nazism”, and some others, but they are not automatically included in our database, because we need to make sure that some other criteria are met - excessive punishment or the absence of violence in a person’s actions.
Colleagues find information about these cases on court websites, in the media, blogs and other open sources. There are also cases on the list where we can establish a political motive of prosecution even though the charges themselves are not formally “political”.
In addition, the OVD-Info list includes cases in which people are prosecuted for direct actions - for example, . This is done where an anti-war motive can be identified and/or where the punishment is excessive.
Is it even possible to draw up a comprehensive list?
Sergey Davidis:
There is no doubt that the actual number of political prisoners in Russia is much higher. My broad estimation would be in the area of ten thousand, including Ukrainian citizens kept in custody in Russia. In this light, the difference between our estimate and OVD-Info’s is not that significant.
Denis Shedov:
Any estimate is an attempt to fit reality into a rigid format.
Both Memorial’s and OVD-Info’s assessments are limited by what is available to us. We see that the Russian authorities like to cover up repression with secrecy, unless it is some kind of show trial. Very often there is almost no information on politically motivated cases on court websites and in other sources. Even the media have lately often been limiting themselves to republishing releases from law enforcement agencies.
Why do some people remain off the lists?
Sergey Davidis:
It often happens that a person already known to us is sent to a detention center where they meet several other prisoners who are clearly being persecuted for political reasons but have been completely under our radar. This might happen, for instance, if they themselves did not know that they could ask someone for help, and they have no support group who would reach out to human rights defenders. Obviously we don’t know how many people are in this situation, but we can guess that they aren’t rare.
There are many cases where we do not have enough information for consideration.
For example, the whole array of cases of treason, which are now over a hundred—a number unheard of in post-Soviet Russia!—are classified. Can we claim that all those imprisoned under such charges are political prisoners? Seeing what is going on in Russia, it may well be the case, but this has to be proved, and we don’t even know what exactly they are accused of.
Or the thousands of cases against people who evade military service in various ways. Almost all of these people admit guilt and cooperate with the investigation, and the cases are heard behind closed doors. With the exception of just a few cases, we do not know what motives they had for choosing to evade service: whether for reasons of conscience or because they believed they were underpaid, for example.
A huge number of Ukrainian citizens have been held in custody in Russia - according to estimates by our Ukrainian colleagues, at least seven thousand civilian hostages in Russia and the occupied territories. Even from the point of view of Russian law, there are no legal grounds for holding them. That is why the very fact of their detention and the places where they are held are concealed. Only a small number of them are charged.
There are also Ukrainian prisoners of war who are being criminally prosecuted in Russia. These are dozens and even hundreds of cases. Their trials are completely non-transparent, the accused are deprived of the right to a defence, torture is widespread, and often the persecuted “confess” guilt. We have no reason to trust Russian courts, but we cannot reject their accusations outright, and we do not have access to the materials; therefore, these cases are also in the gray zone.