Daily Journal: Scared

Thanks to the activities of the Moscow Public Monitoring Commission for people in custody, it became known about the seriously ill Marina Charykova being held in the Pechatniki pre-trial detention center. She is accused of preparing for sale of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances or their analogues, or simply put, they found in her possession the pharmaceutical drug piracetam with an admixture of a home-made psychotropic stimulant, the composition of which was classified as amphetamine. According to Marina’s mother, her daughter used this substance on her own after more than 60 operations performed on her in order to at least slightly relieve the terrible pain that had tormented her since birth.

Charykova does not have a rectum, she is recognized as disabled. This, however, has so far not bothered anyone. The corresponding disease is not on the special list of diseases that serve as grounds for not placing a person in custody. On the other hand, as Charykova’s lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina stated, not a single pre-trial detention center in Moscow has a license to carry out medical activities in the field of coloproctology and, thus, there is no proctologist in any relevant institution.

However, the story reached the European Court of Human Rights, which requested information from the Russian government about Charykova’s health and treatment. After this, the investigation refused to bring final charges against Charykova on April 1, and the Federal Service for Drug Trafficking Control withdrew its appeal to extend the accused’s detention. According to the Open Information Agency, Charykova is due to be released from pre-trial detention on April 12.

However, on April 5, Ekho Moskvy reported that Charykova was released from the pre-trial detention center on her own recognizance. “Margarita will go home to her mother’s place of residence in the Moscow region and the issue of her hospitalization will be decided,” Sidorkina told the Open Information Agency.