Elena Sannikova: Political prisoners and other victims of repression in russia, yesterday and today

Over the past ten years, the level of repression has been rising in Russia. Today several hundred prisoners of conscience and political prisoners are imprisoned and detained in the country, a figure comparable to the late Soviet Union.

–How does the repressive apparatus function?
–What is the make-up of today’s contingent of political prisoner?
–What forms of activity has civil society developed to withstand these repressive policies, and to provide a public defence and moral support to our political prisoners and other victims of political repression?

Elena Sannikova will be speaking about these issues and some of the most interesting and remarkable stories and individuals to be found among those imprisoned for their political views or religious beliefs.

Elena N. Sannikova first came to the attention of the KGB at university in Kalinin (today Tver) where she organized a Bible study group among fellow students. In summer 1980 she was expelled from the languages.

From 1982 onwards, Elena worked for the Fund to Aid Political Prisoners and their Families, set up in 1974 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and his wife Natalya.  In December 1983, she compiled and circulated a bulletin entitled The Herald of the Human Rights Movement.
In January 1984 Elena was arrested by the KGB, charged with Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda (Article 70), and incarcerated in Lefortovo Prison (Moscow).  After a short period in the Mordovian camps – she had been in custody since January – she was sent to Siberia to the Tomsk Region to serve her term of exile.

In December 1987, Elena was granted a pardon by Mikhail Gorbachev as one of the last two women in the USSR serving a sentence under Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code.

In the early 21st century Lena became involved in anti-war activities From December 2002 onwards, she travelled regularly to Chechnya to help people who had suffered from the fighting and she published a number of articles and reports about the victims of that war.

In 2004 Lena prepared the diary of Chechen nurse Madina Elmurzayeva for publication and it appeared with her preface. Elmurzayeva was killed in Grozny in February 1995 during the first Chechen War when, as usual, she and her group were working to save the wounded.

Today she serves as an expert consultant for the movement “For Human Rights” and is a participant in the ecumenical and independent Christian Action movement.

Elena’s articles have been published in the weekly newspapers Russian Thought (Paris) and Obshchaya gazeta (Moscow), and in the Chechen magazine Dosh (Moscow). She is a regular contributor to the internet news websites Grani.ru and the Daily Magazine [Yezhednevny zhurnal].

This event is organised by Pushkin Club and all are welcome.
In Russian with English translation.