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| Anti-war activist dies in Russian prison ‘after being tortured with stun gun' |
| 2023-06-19 |
| [Telegraph UK via Yahoo] An anti-war activist has died in a Russian prison after being tortured with a stun gun, a human rights group has said. Rostov police have insisted that Anatoly Berezikov, 40, died by suicide following his arrest on suspicion of treason for putting up posters that called for the Russian army to leave Ukraine. However, First Department, the human rights NGO he worked for, said Berezikov died on Wednesday, the day before he was due to be released, after being taken to a forest and wounded with the weapon. Yevgeny Smirnov, a lawyer for the group, said that the alleged treatment of the activist, a supporter of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, fitted a wider pattern. He said torture had been normalised and that people accused of treason are taken to a basement or a forest and given electric shocks, "often to the genitals", and, in some cases, subjected to a mock execution. "The lucky ones are just beaten," he added. Berezikov’s lawyer in Rostov said his client had injuries from a stun gun on his body the day before he died. |
| Posted by:Enver Slager8035 |