According to AFP, Soviet-era dissidents estimate there were over 700 political prisoners in the Soviet Union in 1987
Moscow – In the last year, the number of political prisoners in Russia has risen from 362 to 420: the NGO for the defense of human rights announced yesterday Memorial, picked up by various media. The head of Memorial’s political prisoner support program, Serghiei Davidis, quoted by the AFP, specified that Memorial’s count uses OSCE and Council of Europe guidelines to identify political prisoners but that the real number it is believed to be “two or even three times higher”.
“Now in Russia the number of political prisoners is comparable to what there was in the late USSR, until Gorbachev freed them,” Davidis told the online media Meduza. According to the AFP, Soviet-era dissidents estimate that there were over 700 political prisoners in the Soviet Union in 1987. In the list of political prisoners, Memorial includes jailed Russian opponent Alexiei Navalny, considered Putin’s main political opponent . According to Dozhd TV, of the 420 people on the list, 360 are believed to be persecuted for religious reasons. The AFP underlines that Memorial in the past year it has included 68 Jehovah’s Witnesses among political prisoners. The religious group of Jehovah’s Witnesses was defined “extremist” by the Russian authorities in 2017 and the Kremlin is accused of persecuting the faithful with arrests, convictions and searches, blatantly violating the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Russian Constitution.
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