NYT”: Hundreds of Political Prisoners in Russia Still Awaiting Release

On Thursday, Ankara hosted the largest prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries since the Cold War. The operation involved 24 people from prisons in seven countries and two children. Turkish authorities said 10 people, including two minors, were relocated to Russia13 to Germanthree to USA. The exchange included people from prisons in the USA, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, NorwayRussia and Belarus.

The New York daily recalls that hundreds of people imprisoned in Russia – including Americans and Russian political activists, journalists and artists – are still waiting with hope for another round of diplomatic negotiations that will ensure their freedom.

Among the dozen or so Americans serving sentences in Russia is Pennsylvania history teacher Marc Fogel, who worked at an Anglo-American school in Moscow for nearly a decade. In 2021, when he tried to enter Russia, he was arrested and charged with drug smuggling. The evidence was allegedly found in his luggage, a small amount of medical marijuana, which he used to relieve severe pain. A year later, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. “Convicted murderers in Russia often received more lenient sentences,” notes the New York Times.

Just three weeks ago, rock musician Michael Travis Leake, a longtime resident of Moscow, was sentenced to 13 years in prison after prosecutors accused him of drug trafficking. He pleaded not guilty.

The newspaper also presented profiles of Russian political prisoners, including theater artists Yevgenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk, who were sentenced by a court in June to six years in prison for “justifying terrorism” in a play about the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), which they wrote and directed.

That same month, journalist Artem Kriger from the Russian news agency Sota Vision was arrested on charges of working for an anti-corruption foundation founded by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian penal colony in February.

For condemning Russia's war against Ukraine in 2023, 65-year-old engineer Igor L. Baryshnikov was sentenced to seven and a half years in a penal colony, and in 2022, 63-year-old Moscow City Council deputy Alexey Gorinov was also sentenced to seven years in a penal colony for the same reason.

According to the non-governmental organization Memorial Association, which deals with the defense human rightsmore than 300 people are considered political prisoners in Russia, and at least 400 people have been accused of religious beliefs.