Anna Politkovskaya was killed on 7 October 2006. Her articles, written from behind Chechnya’s blood-soaked information wall and barbed wire, became a voice of truth — the truth about what residents of the republic were experiencing as they became a convenient and powerless collective victim of the global “fight against international terrorism”.
Over the past two months, political prisoner Memet Belyalov has been repeatedly sent to the punishment cell of colony No. 9 in the Novgorod region. The last time the official reason for transferring a Crimean Tatar to a ShIZO was the lack of a shirt. When Memet Belyalov was taking a bath, an observer entered the cell, and he did not have time to put on a long-sleeved shirt. The employee of the colony regarded this as a violation.
The Southern District Military Court in September 2020 sentenced Belyalov to 18 years in prison. He was found guilty of participating in the Islamic party Hizb ut-Tahrir, recognized as terrorist in the Russian Federation. According to human rights activists, members of the organization are being persecuted not for preparing a coup d'état and terrorism, but for public actions against political repressions in Crimea and criticism of the Russian authorities.