 Source: HRO.org (info) Mikhail Savva, who has been prosecuted for his civic activity in Krasnodar region and is serving a suspended sentence, has written about his decision to leave Russia. ‘The probation service has asked the court to change my suspended sentence for a real term in prison. This had been long expected. After being questioned on 25 December last year I understood quite clearly that very soon they will present me with charges for in one more fabricated case. This would mean being held in pre-trial detention until the court hearing, and changing the three-year suspended sentence for a real term in prison. Hoping for justice in Russia today is a real sign of weakness of mind. I left. ‘It is not worth those whose student years are over leaving the country for the sake of a more comfortable life. There are more minuses than pluses. But if they are going to put you behind bars, a different kind of logic becomes relevant. The authorities in our country are at war with its people. ‘Political prisoners in Russia are people who have been taken hostage by the regime in the course of this war. The authorities act illegally in how they treat them, they convict them without any crime having taken place, extend their terms in prison with new alleged crimes, and create torturous conditions of detention. And if a war is being conducted against you, then act like a POW: "Survive, get free, struggle".’ On 19 February representatives of the Krasnodar prison service asked the Sovetsky district court in Krasnodar to send Professor Mikhail Savva to a penal colony, primarily on the grounds that he was allegedly violating the conditions of his suspended sentence. Professor Mikhail Savva is being prosecuted by the Krasnodar department of the FSB. On 2 April 2014, Pervomaisky district court in Krasnodar had convicted Mikhail Savva and sentenced him to a three-year suspended sentence, with a probationary period of two years and a fine of 70,000 roubles. Mikhail Savva denied that he was guilty of the charges, which he called ‘not only simply not serious, but invented’. Human rights defenders believe that the prosecution of Professor Savva was politically motivated. Text based on materials published by Yugopolis and Elena Savva |
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