stories

Political persecution in Russia, by the numbers Human rights group OVD-Info launches a major new resource for tracking Kremlin repression

Source: Meduza

The human rights organization OVD-Info, which tracks political persecution in Russia and provides support for victims, has launched a new tool designed to make its data more accessible for researchers and reporters. The project, called the Criminal Repression Dashboard, provides a visual representation of the data gathered every day by OVD-Info’s staff and volunteers on Russia’s politically motivated criminal cases. Meduza spoke with OVD-Info co-founder Daniel Beilinson and English managing editor Dan Storyev about the initiative. And to demonstrate the kinds of insights the dashboard can provide, Beilinson shared 10 takeaways from the data that caught his attention.

The Criminal Repression Dashboard

What’s new about this tool?

OVD-Info runs a 24-hour hotline for Russians targeted by the authorities, tracks arrests and police brutality, and offers legal assistance to victims of political repression, among other things. These activities generate a huge amount of data, which serve as a vital resource for researchers and journalists focused on human rights in Russia — but the sheer volume of this information can be overwhelming. That’s where the new dashboard comes in.

“The dashboard allows you to see what’s going on in Russia in terms of political repression from a bird’s eye view,” OVD-Info’s English managing editor Dan Storyev told Meduza:

OVD-Info co-founder Daniel Beilinson added that the new project embodies the organization’s long-time mission. “Thirteen years ago, when we founded OVD-Info, we were thinking and reporting about specific stories of individual people,” he said. “We wanted every number to have a name behind it. This project continues that tradition. Nearly every statistic and chart here tells the stories of these individuals and allows you to access detailed data selections.”

Who is this dashboard for?

By putting this constantly growing dataset in a more accessible format, OVD-Info’s team aims to address the long-term trend of growing Western apathy and fatigue around negative news from Russia. “I think that human rights and the rights of political prisoners in Russia should remain a focus for global policy, especially European policy, since the state of democracy in Russia is directly connected with European security,” Storyev said. “So, I’m happy that we have this project that will hopefully persuade people in policy circles, expert circles, and journalistic circles to keep their eye on Russian political prisoners and to not let them out of their sight.”

The organization also hopes that the people using this data will play an active role in shaping the project’s development. “[We] want to co-design this project with journalists and researchers,” said Daniel Beilinson. “For instance, say someone wants to write an article about ShIZO [punitive isolation cells], but they can’t find the information that we’ve already posted. We discuss it and come up with some ideas together for how to reflect it better, and from then on, it’s always there, because we’re just exposing the data collected by OVD-Info every day!”

OVD-Info’s overarching goal is to make it easy for others to use its findings. “We want the data to be truly useful, and the only way to achieve that is by working together with those who use it,” Beilinson said. “That’s why we encourage [readers] not only to use this tool but also to reach out to us when you identify something missing or lacking in this dashboard.”

Daniel Beilinson’s top 10 insights from the dashboard

1. More than 2,930 people in Russia are currently being persecuted on political grounds.

About 20 percent of these victims are women. Notably, the rate of new prosecutions is currently not increasing: the number of new cases has declined compared to the first year of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine and has stabilized at roughly last year’s level.

2. About 1,400 of these people are currently behind bars.

Just over a quarter of Russia’s political prisoners are being held in pre-trial detention as a preventive measure. Unlike the overall prosecution rate, this number is actually increasing. With the year not yet over, the count of those remanded in custody has already matched the total for all of 2023. Meanwhile, the number of people released in the past year is less than half of the number of people imprisoned.

3. The highest numbers of political prisoners are in Bashkortostan, Moscow, and the Rostov region.

This is, of course, no coincidence. The protests that rocked Bashkortostan in January 2024 sparked a wave of criminal prosecutions of activists. Moscow’s prisons, meanwhile, hold not only people charged in the capital but also those accused of treason. Finally, the Rostov region is where many cases that were initiated in annexed and occupied Ukrainian territories are being processed.

4. Sixty-six of Russia’s political prisoners are of retirement age.

The oldest, an 86-year-old member of the “Citizens of the U.S.S.R.” movement named Larisa Pashnina, was convicted of incitement to terrorism. Eleven people were imprisoned as minors; the youngest, Arseniy Turbin and Valery Zaytsev, are just 16. And another 54 political prisoners are between 18 and 20.

5. At least 51 people are currently undergoing court-ordered compulsory psychiatric treatment.

The number of new sentences imposing this measure has slightly decreased, both over the past quarter and over the past year as a whole.

6. The median prison sentence over the past year has decreased to 5.5 years.

Over the last quarter, it dropped even further to 4.3 years. Overall, the number of sentences ranging from four to seven years has increased by more than 25 percent. The second most common sentence range is now 10 to 15 years, which has also seen a significant rise, increasing by more than 20 percent.

7. ‘Extremist activity,’ ‘incitement of terrorism,’ and ‘fake news’ charges are up.

The three most common charges leading to convictions are “participation in an extremist organization” (Criminal Code Part 2, Article 282.2), “public calls for terrorism via the internet” (Part 2, Article 205.2), and “spreading fake news about the Russian military” (aggravated, Part 2, Article 207.3). The number of convictions on these charges has significantly increased over the past year.

8. Other charges have become more popular recently.

The protests in Bashkortostan led to a surge in charges related to “mass riots” (Part 2, Article 212) and “non-violent assault against public officials” (Part 1, Article 318). Notably, there has also been an increase in cases related to “disrespect for days of military honor,” “desecration of military memorials” (Part 3, Article 354.1, regarding the rehabilitation of Nazism), and “violations of regulations for foreign agents” (Part 2, Article 330.1).

9. Over 20 political prisoners are in isolation.

At the moment, 22 people are being held in isolated confinement within their detention facilities, including solitary confinement cells, special containment units, and cell-type facilities. 

10. Dozens of journalists are behind bars.

At least 35 journalists and 26 bloggers are currently imprisoned.