Convicted human rights activist Sergei Mokhnatkin is denied medical care

Human rights activist Sergei Mokhnatkin, convicted on charges of using force against a police officer, is denied a medical examination. this on Facebook with reference to Mokhnatkin's public defender Andrei Krekov. said Olena Efros, coordinator of the Tales for Political Prisoners project,

According to Krekov, Mokhnatkin was denied an examination at the oncological hospital, which the political prisoner himself asked for due to severe pain in his leg and back. The procedures had already been scheduled, and Mokhnatkin was to be sent to the clinic from the Regional Hospital of the Federal Penitentiary Service, where he was awaiting examination. However, as Krekov said, at the moment when the car with Mokhnatkin left the hospital of the Federal Penitentiary Service, the head of the institution, Konstantin Dechkin, received an order to return. Employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service told Krekov that the reason for the return was Mokhnatkin's inappropriate behavior. The political prisoner says that Dechkin's statements are not true.

Andrei Krekov said that another possible reason for Mokhnatkin's refusal to be examined was that the public defender was in the courtyard of the prison hospital in his car. He was going to follow the car in which Mokhnatkin was being transported as a legal representative.

When asked by Krekov about whether an examination would eventually be carried out, the acting chief physician of the Regional Hospital of the Federal Penitentiary Service said that the queue for the examination would last two months. According to her, the hospital is not a place to wait, and Mokhnatkin can spend this time in the colony. The public defender believes that the refusal is motivated by the fact that Mokhnatkin has less than two months left to serve his sentence in the colony.

Krekov said that Mokhnatkin's condition could worsen greatly in the colony. “If Sergey is sent to a colony now, then they don’t have the right to place him in the medical unit, but they will have to send him to the PKT for a week, where he cannot lie during the day. And this, given his condition, greatly aggravates the situation, ”said the public defender.

The examination was scheduled due to an attack of acute pain on the night of October 5-6, after which Mokhnatkin could not lie down and sit. The pain appears to be related to the spinal injury he sustained as a result of a beating by FSIN officers in March 2016. The conflict occurred after Mokhnaktin refused, in connection with a new criminal case, to move from the colony to the pre-trial detention center without a written order. A month after the beating, Mokhnatkin was diagnosed with consolidated compression fractures of the 1st and 2nd lumbar vertebrae.

• In June 2018, Sergei Mokhnatkin spoke about being gassed in the colony where the human rights activist is serving his sentence. According to Mokhnatkin, in his PKT (cell-type room), FSIN officers sprayed gas, in one case through a window, and in another through a hole in the door.
• On December 10, 2014, Mokhnatkin was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison on charges of using force against police officers (Part 1, Article 318 of the Criminal Code). On March 20, 2017, the activist was found guilty of disrupting the activities of institutions that ensure isolation from society (part 2 of article 321 of the Criminal Code) and sentenced him to two additional years of strict regime.
• In June 2010, Mokhnatkin was sentenced under Part 2 of Art. 318 (use of violence against a representative of the authorities, dangerous to life and health) to two and a half years in prison, the events at the “Strategy-31” action on December 31 (2009) on Triumfalnaya Square also became the reason. Based on the materials of that case, the Union of Solidarity with Political Prisoners recognized Mokhnatkin as a political prisoner. In April 2012, he was pardoned by President Medvedev.