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At Penal Colony No. 5 in Oryol Region, where Moscow activist Mikhail Kriger is being held, prisoners are not being given prepaid forms to reply to letters. The project “For Human Rights” reports this, citing the activist’s brother.
65-year-old Kriger spoke about this during a phone call with relatives.
“There’s even someone there who had spare forms, he wrote a letter, took it somewhere to the operations department—I think so. They didn’t accept it. That’s the problem,” the activist’s brother says.
Kriger’s daughter said that, nevertheless, letters sent to the activist do reach him.
Recently, Kriger was released from the punitive isolation cell. “For Human Rights” writes that he was placed there solely because of the article under which he was convicted, since “under that article, a person is required to go to punitive isolation.” The project does not specify which of the two articles is meant.
In May 2023, the activist was sentenced to seven years in a penal colony on charges of inciting extremism (Part 2, Article 280 of the Criminal Code) and justifying terrorism (Part 2, Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code). The case was opened because of his posts. Presumably, in one post he wrote about the suicide bombing by Mikhail Zhlobitsky at the Arkhangelsk FSB building—a city in northwestern Russia—and the shooting outside the FSB building in Moscow carried out by Yevgeny Manyurov. In another post, Kriger wrote:
“I do not hide from anyone my fierce hatred of the regime, the security services that established it, and personally of Putin V. V. And believe me, when and if I live to see the hanging of this KGB scum, I will fight with all my might for the right to take part in this uplifting event.”
Kriger believes that these posts were only a formal pretext for prosecution, and that the real reason was his anti-war and pro-Ukrainian stance.
The activist has been in detention since November 2022.
On 9 September Mikhail Kriger was sent to punitive isolation for 15 days; this is already his third placement there in the past two months. This was reported by the Telegram channel of his support group. The activist and other prisoners at Penal Colony No. 5 still cannot reply to letters, as they are still not being issued forms.
- Mikhail Kriger is one of the founders of the “Solidarity with Political Prisoners Union” and a member of the Anti-War Action Committee. He was also a member of the “Solidarity” movement and the Moscow region’s “Memorial.” He participated in protest actions in Moscow for many years.