The court refused to release Kuban activist Daria Polyudova from prison on parole

On April 19, the Leninsky District Court of Novorossiysk refused to release political prisoner Daria Polyudova on parole early from a penal colony, serving a sentence for two posts on the social network VKontakte, which the court considered calls for extremism and separatism. The Public Verdict Foundation reported this on its Facebook page with reference to the foundation’s lawyer Irina Biryukova.

The court motivated its decision by the fact that Polyudova “did not take the path of correction, did not admit herself guilty, and the actions committed were crimes.” Polyudova's lawyer intends to appeal the court's decision, including in connection with procedural violations.

During today's court hearing, the correctional colony presented the characteristics and conclusions of the commission prepared for the trial to replace the type of punishment with a more lenient one (on February 21, 2017, the court refused to replace it). When asked by the defenders about the new characteristics, a representative of the colony stated that during this time “nothing has changed, so there are no new characteristics.”

“The representative of the colony actually admitted that the characterization was copied from a previous case, because “a person’s character does not change,” says the Public Verdict report.

In 2015, the court sentenced activist Daria Polyudova to two years in a penal colony for posts on a social network in which Polyudova allegedly called for the “federalization of Kuban.”

On February 20, 2017, Polyudova stated that she was subjected to pressure in custody.