Nataliia Filonova

A resident of Buryatia. On 14 June 2011, she participated in organizing a citizens’ gathering in response to the closure of three small schools in the Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky district. She was detained at the police station and declared a dry hunger strike. Despite this, at the suggestion of prosecutor’s office representative Maxim Semenov, the court sentenced her to 15 days’ arrest. After her release, she filed an appeal. During the hearing, Semenov was called as a witness, and Filonova stated that she did not want to interact with a man who, knowing about her dry hunger strike, demanded a 15-day arrest. Following this, a criminal case was initiated against her for insulting a representative of the prosecutor’s office. During the investigation, Filonova was detained for a psychiatric examination. On 31 August 2012, the day the verdict was delivered, someone attempted to run her over with a car while she was riding her bicycle with her child to the hospital. The court fined her 20,000 rubles. Before the appeal was considered, she was forcibly taken to the investigator. The appellate court sent the case back for further investigation. In 2014, the court re-sentenced Filonova to a fine of 20,000 rubles.

On 21 October 2022, Filonova was detained (https://ovd.info/express-news/2022/10/21/na-pensionerku-presleduemuyu-iz-za-antivoennoy-pozicii-predpolozhitelno) in connection with a new criminal case alleging the use of violence against law enforcement. She refused the investigator-appointed lawyer, demanded access to her public defender Nadezhda Nizovkina, and went on a hunger strike. At the court hearing to decide on her pre-trial measures, she again requested Nizovkina as her public defender, but the court refused, citing that the human rights defender did not hold a lawyer’s status. Filonova was placed under house arrest. On 15 November, it became known (https://ovd.info/express-news/2022/11/15/v-ulan-ude-uchastnicu-akcii-protiv-mobilizacii-hotyat-otpravit-v-sizo-ona) that a new allegation had been added: she was suspected of breaking a policeman’s finger. She was detained and began a hunger strike. On 17 November, Filonova was taken into custody. This followed her husband suffering a heart attack and her adopted son going missing; she went to look for him wearing an electronic bracelet. Nadezhda Nizovkina was questioned as a witness and consequently could no longer act as Filonova’s defence counsel; she was later prosecuted for refusing to testify. In March 2023, it became known (https://ovd.info/express-news/2023/03/06/delo-arestovannoy-uchastnicy-akcii-protiv-mobilizacii-vernuli-sledovatelyu) that the prosecutor returned the case to the investigator and Filonova’s adopted son was placed in an orphanage.

On 31 August 2023, Filonova was sentenced to two years and ten months in a general regime colony. In March 2024, it was reported that she had been denied access to the colony library after reading Pushkin’s “Deep in the Siberian mines...” and Alexander Odoevsky’s response poem at a memorial evening. Filonova was released on 4 March 2025.