18 سالگی پشت میله‌ها؛ تاوان سنگین مخالفت با پوتین برای نوجوان روس

🔸Arseni Turbin spends his 18th birthday in a detention center’s solitary cell in the city of Perm. Arrested at age 15 for distributing leaflets against Vladimir Putin, sharing content from Alexei Navalny, and opposing the invasion of Ukraine, he was then dubbed the youngest political prisoner in Russia.

🔸Arseni has been sentenced to five years in prison on charges of membership in the armed group the Russian Freedom Legion; an accusation he denies, and his family says investigators added fabricated confessions to his case.

🔸One of the family’s friends told the Russian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that prosecutors openly stated that simply being opposed to Putin and the war is enough to secure his conviction. The names of interviewees in this report have been withheld because Russia considers Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty an “undesirable organization,” and interviews with it entail security risks.

🔸His time in custody has been marked by ongoing plotting—ranging from prisoners’ attempts to extract confessions and plant a booklet supporting banned groups in his belongings, to harassment by detention facility teachers.

🔸Now, authorities are building a new case and accusing him of involvement in the January 7 seventh-day riot in the detention center, which could add another three to eight years to his sentence; all the while that Arseni has told his family that on that day he was only in his cell watching television.

🔸Read the full report on the RadioFarda website.