Several Russian political prisoners, including 70-year-old activist Oleg Orlov, are missing after being transferred from prison, human rights groups said today.
Lawyers for Orlov, 71, have lost track of their client in a pre-trial detention facility in the city of Sizran in the Samara region, according to Memorial, the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Prison authorities have refused to inform the lawyers about the whereabouts of the activist, who was sentenced in February to two and a half years in prison for writing an article against Russia's military campaign in Ukraine.
Memorial argued that the prison transfer should not have been made until the appeals process is completed.
The whereabouts of Ksenia Fadeyeva, a former municipal deputy in the Siberian city of Tomsk and a collaborator of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, are also unknown.
Sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of coordinating the activities of an extremist organisation, Fadeyeva was transferred to a penitentiary in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk.
Lilia Chánisheva is in a similar situation, serving nine and a half years in prison for extremism after years as Navalni's representative in the Bashkiria region.
Chánisheva was the first activist to face criminal charges for extremism in 2021 because of her links to Navalni.
The Medusa portal reported that the artist Sasha Skolichenko was transferred on Sunday from St Petersburg prison, where she was serving a seven-year sentence, to an unknown destination, according to her friends.
Arrested for changing price tags in a St Petersburg supermarket for messages about alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine, she was recognised as a political prisoner by Amnesty International.
The process of transfer to another prison in Russia, known as ‘etapirovanie’, can take weeks and keep detainees out of contact.
