Yan Shenkman

A few months ago, I received a message from a random social media account in Russia, which asked me to sign an open letter in support of Russian political prisoner Azat Miftakhov. I knew the man behind the account, which has since been deleted; these days, he is ‘deep underground’, trying to stay completely off the grid. I questioned what help a letter could be but signed anyway. A person who is safe has no right to refuse those who are in danger.

When I saw the letter published in French media outlet Mediapart days later, I learned that hundreds of others had also demanded freedom for Miftakhov: mathematicians, scientists, journalists, trade unionists, from countries including France, the US and Russia.

I know Miftakhov’s story well. Back in 2019, when I was still in Russia, I was reporting on ‘The Network’ case: a group of young men across Russia, who had anarchist and left-wing beliefs, were detained, brutally tortured and then sentenced to long prison sentences – allegedly for scheming to bring down the Kremlin through terrorist acts. It was a very high-profile case, and one that Miftakhov came to be implicated in….

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/russia-azat-miftakhov-political-prisoners-anarchist/