The Human Rights Council asks the Prosecutor General to check the legality of Davydova’s charges of treason

The Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights under the President of the Russian Federation today sent a request to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation addressed to Prosecutor General Chaika regarding the validity of the charge of high treason brought against Svetlana Davydova, a resident of the Smolensk region.

The text of the request , published on the HRC website, states:

“As follows from the publications, S. Davydova is accused of informing the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow in April 2014 about the possible dispatch of Russian troops to Donetsk, based on a telephone conversation heard in a minibus. Based on the disposition of Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (high treason), questions arise about the validity of such a qualification of S. Davydova's actions. Also of concern is the choice of arrest as a preventive measure for a mother of many children who is raising seven children, the youngest of whom is only two months old.”

Earlier it became known that Svetlana Davydova, a resident of the Smolensk region, was arrested on January 21 on suspicion of committing high treason. The reason for the arrest was her appeal to the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow due to the fact that, in her opinion, soldiers from military unit No. 48886, located under the windows of her apartment in Vyazma, could be sent to the Donetsk region. Davydova first discovered that the military unit was almost empty, and then she saw one of the soldiers from there in a minibus - he told someone on the phone that “in small groups they are being transported to Moscow, always in civilian clothes, and from there further on a business trip.”

Now Davydova is in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center, the lawyer Davyda, by appointment , said that he did not plan to appeal the decision on her arrest.