My political prisoners

“Gorbachev freed us! We will come to you soon!” - I remember how the voice of my mother rang in the receiver, who called from Ust-Koksa, a small regional center in Gorny Altai, where she and my father lived in exile by court order. July 1987 It was a time of euphoria: perestroika, glasnost had begun, the film “Repentance” had already been shown, prisoners were returning home from camps and exile. The air really smelled of freedom.

Then my mother told me that they were invited to the regional prosecutor in Gorno-Altaisk for a conversation back in March. They were offered to return to Moscow, but to give assurance that they would not violate the law in the future. They refused and therefore spent several more months in exile, although then they were released anyway. They could not afford to write such a paper. This meant, Mom said, implicitly admitting that they had broken the law by professing their faith. After all, they - my parents Zoya Krakhmalnikova and Felix Svetov - were tried for their faith. Do not be surprised: 25 years ago, the publication of religious texts, in samizdat, and even more so in the West, was considered "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda carried out in order to undermine Soviet power." Today, the texts that my mother printed in the Nadezhda collections are freely sold in churches, and for those who were born in the post-Soviet era, it would never occur to them that someone was imprisoned and recognized as political prisoners for publishing such texts.

But here's the paradox: then, 25 years ago, it was much easier to understand and explain why this or that arrested person is called a political prisoner. All of them were ideological enemies of the authorities. They were imprisoned for their views, for their beliefs.

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They were offered to return to Moscow, but to give assurance that they would not violate the law in the future.

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Today, when we are discussing the list of Russian political prisoners that Bolotnaya's leaders submitted to the presidential administration, it is sometimes difficult for us to understand what all these people have in common. Indeed, among them, perhaps, with the exception of the National Bolsheviks, there are no those whose convictions would be ideologically alien to the current government.

Nevertheless, I am sure: all of them - "scientists-spies", "extremists", employees of the disgraced Yukos company - are political prisoners. Why?

The nature of power has changed. For her, profit is now more important than ideology. All persons involved in the list of political prisoners are sitting on custom-made, fabricated cases. And every time someone from the authorities was interested in their condemnation. Or someone from the structures close to the authorities. And since there has been no independent court in Russia for at least 12 years, the judges obediently make the decisions that are expected of them. And every time there is a political component in the condemnation of those whom we call political prisoners. Let's take the most obvious case for me - the case of the Chechen girl Zara Murtazaliyeva. I have been going to her colony for five years now and I am absolutely sure that she is innocent. Murtazaliyeva was sentenced to eight and a half years for preparing an explosion in the Okhotny Ryad shopping center. There has never been an explosion. What is the political component of her case? Please: in recent years, the FSB has periodically reported on the prevention of terrorist attacks and the capture of enemies. In 2004, Murtazaliyeva was appointed such a terrible enemy. Without evidence, with the help of fabrications and false evidence obtained under pressure.

“My eight and a half years will end in September. Eight and a half years blotted out of my life,” she said bitterly to me on our last date in December 2011.

In the 80s, it seems, political prisoners were not given such long terms. They seem to have been "vegetarian" compared to Putin's time.

Sakharov Avenue and Bolotnaya demand from the authorities the immediate release of political prisoners. It's not hard to free them. But only strong power can be merciful. Weak - cruel and short-sighted.