Human rights activist Oleg Orlov was transferred from Moscow on the night of April 11-12, and is currently in Samara's pretrial detention center No. 1, Memorial reports .
Neither Orlov's lawyers nor his wife knew about the transfer to another region. The human rights activist said that he was very tired and still did not know where exactly he was being transferred and on what grounds.
"We appealed the verdict of the Golovinsky District Court of Moscow, therefore, the verdict is considered to have entered into legal force only after the second instance court. After all, purely theoretically, the appellate court can mitigate the punishment, acquit. And Orlov has already been sent to the stage without being finally convicted," noted lawyer Katerina Tertukhina.
Memorial clarifies that immediately after the arrest of Orlov's wife, Tatyana Kasatkina wrote a statement in which she asked not to send the human rights activist anywhere until the verdict came into force, describing his and her health condition and emphasizing that she is Orlov's only relative. At the same time, on Thursday, when the transfer began, the judge granted Kasatkina permission to meet with her husband, which was supposed to take place this week. The judge could not have been unaware of the transfer, because of which the meeting would not take place.
In early April, it became known that due to daily trips to court to review the materials of the first instance hearings and the inability to treat a cold, the human rights activist's hearing began to deteriorate.
On February 27, Oleg Orlov was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for repeated discrediting of the army (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code), and he was taken into custody in the courtroom. The reason for the prosecution was the article "They wanted fascism. They got it." The case was announced on March 21, 2023. That day, Orlov and other employees of International Memorial were searched as part of another case - the rehabilitation of Nazism (clause "b" of Part 2 of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code), in which Orlov, like his colleagues, is a witness.
The court considered Orlov's case twice. The first time, in October 2023, he was sentenced to a fine of 150 thousand rubles, but the prosecutor's office appealed this decision and achieved a review.
During the new investigation, the investigator found in the case a motive of “ideological hostility towards traditional Russian spiritual, moral and patriotic values,” as well as a motive of hatred towards the social group “military personnel.”
Orlov does not admit his guilt. During the first hearing of the new trial, he refused to defend himself and noted that he would only make his final statement, since he "does not consider this court to be a court of justice." The human rights activist also forbade his lawyers to call witnesses so as not to "increase the risks for people." The man went to the hearings with the book "The Trial" by Franz Kafka.
On April 17, Oleg Orlov will be transferred to the pretrial detention center No. 2 in Syzran. This was reported by the Memorial Center, citing a lawyer who was told about this in the Samara pretrial detention center.
On April 23, Oleg Orlov was placed in a special block of the pretrial detention center No. 2 in Syzran. This was reported by the Memorial Center. There is no TV in the cell, and the library in the pretrial detention center is closed for a month due to the librarian's vacation. However, despite the difficult stage, the human rights activist feels well.
You can support Oleg Orlov by sending him a letter using the services "FSIN-letter" or "Zonatelecom" to the address:
446010, Khlebtsevich st., 1, Samara region, Syzran,
FKU SIZO-2 UFSIN of Russia for Samara Region
Orlov Oleg Petrovich, born in 1953
June 7 Orlov said that due to the transfer to Syzran, he is effectively deprived of the assistance of a lawyer, since she cannot regularly travel to meetings from Moscow to another region. SOTAvision writes about this.
In addition, Orlov said that he did not have time to familiarize himself with the case materials before the hearings in the appellate court. The human rights activist only learned about the existence of the last, seventh, volume on the last day. At the request of lawyer Ekaterina Tertukhina, the next appeal hearing was postponed to July 11.
On July 29, Oleg Orlov was taken from Pretrial Detention Center No. 2 in Syzran to an unknown location, the Memorial Center reports , citing the man’s lawyer.
On July 11, the Moscow City Court upheld the human rights activist's sentence, but on July 25, his lawyer was told that the case materials had not yet been received by the court of first instance. According to the lawyer, Orlov's transfer should have taken place later.
The news headline has been changed due to Orlov's disappearance
- At the beginning of February, Oleg Orlov was added to the register of “foreign agents”.
- A case under the first part of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code can be initiated if a person already has at least one court decision that has entered into force under a similar administrative article (Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses) within a year. On May 12, 2022, Orlov was fined 50 thousand rubles under an administrative article on discrediting the army due to the poster “USSR 1945 - the country that defeated fascism. Russia 2022 - the country of victorious fascism,” which he unfurled on Red Square.
- Since February 24, 2022 — the first day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine — residents of Russian cities have been taking part in anti-war protests and talking about the tragedy online every day. Anti-war speeches and statements are becoming grounds for criminal prosecution. At the moment, more than 850 people have become defendants in criminal cases initiated due to protests against the war with Ukraine. Read more about this in our infographic .