The Human Rights Ombudsman in the Sverdlovsk Region spoke out in defense of the convicted teacher

The Commissioner for Human Rights in the Sverdlovsk Region, Tatyana Merzlyakova, promised to help release kindergarten teacher Evgenia Chudnovets, who was convicted of reposting a video of bullying of a naked boy on social networks, Interfax reports .

Merzlyakova said on January 17 that she would write a detailed letter to the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation Tatyana Moskalkova that evening and attach copies of documents with the penalty. “In our opinion, the penalties are quite formal in nature, perhaps they were imposed on orders from above,” she commented.

The Sverdlovsk Ombudsman will also appeal to the Deputy Prosecutor General for the Ural Federal District so that he sends his colleagues in the Kurgan region a proposal to remove penalties from Chudnovets.

According to Merzlyakova, the convicted teacher has a chance for parole, given the public response. “The position of the Kurgan prosecutor’s office was softer than the court decision turned out to be,” she explained. “Since it seems to us that these penalties are very formal, and we will remove them, then she has a chance to be released on parole.”

If Chudnovets is not released, then in February the commissioner’s office will appeal to the governor of the Sverdlovsk region and the president with a request for a pardon. In addition, the defense is going to appeal the verdict in the cassation court, since the teacher is very worried about her reputation.

“Naturally, she had no intention to distribute any pornography,” says lawyer Maria Kirillova. “And she, naturally, is outraged by the fact that she seemed to fight for the rights of others, wanted to attract attention so that those responsible for these events would be punished, but it turned out that she herself ended up in prison.”

A cassation appeal will be filed in the near future, Chudnovets’ lawyer Alexey Bushmakov told TASS.

Currently, Evgenia Chudnovets is in women's correctional colony No. 6 in Nizhny Tagil. Human rights activist, former member of the Public Monitoring Commission of the Sverdlovsk Region Vyacheslav Bashkov stated on his Facebook page that in this institution “torture is considered the norm.”

“Why do I think this? Well, there is a ruling from the Sverdlovsk Regional Court on the illegality of the forty-day torture of convicted Olga Minakova, who was kept chained to bars in a punishment cell. And the worst thing is not even this, but the fact that the head of IK-6, who publicly took responsibility for this, was never punished,” he commented. — The GUFSIN said that since there is no criminal offense, we won’t punish, but the court’s decision... it was a civil court, not a criminal one, well, the court recognized the illegality of the actions of the administration of IK-6, choke and be happy with it.
This is where Evgenia Chudnovets is being taken. And the unserved punishment in the Shadrinsk punishment cell will be remembered there, that’s the system.”

The press service of the GUFSIN for the Sverdlovsk region Znak.com called colony No. 6 “one of the best and exemplary institutions in Russia.” “This colony cannot be called a torture colony,” the press service says. — Regarding the case with Minakova, I would like to note that here she was serving a sentence under serious charges, including 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Murder.” She regularly violated all possible rules and attacked a prison officer.”

Earlier, during the transfer of Chudnovets to Nizhny Tagil, in the Shadrinsk pre-trial detention center-2 she was placed in a punishment cell for 15 days because she covered her legs with a blanket while lying on her bed. Evgenia Chudnovets also spoke about the pressure from the administration of the Shadrinsk pre-trial detention center and the inmates.

On November 8, 2016, the Kataysky District Court of the Kurgan Region sentenced Evgenia Chudnovets, a kindergarten teacher and mother of a young child, to six months in prison to be served in a general regime colony for reposting on her VKontakte page a video of a child being abused in a children’s camp. The woman was accused of distributing child pornography, although she did not film the video, but reposted it to her page with an indignant comment, wanting to draw attention to the problem. After an appeal, the teacher's sentence was reduced by one month.

It was previously reported that the abuse of a child was filmed at the Red Eagles children's health camp. The counselor and teacher, whose comments were heard off-screen, were promptly detained. In 2015, the court sentenced them to three and six years in prison.