Yuri Dmitriev devoted part of his life to the search for the bodies of people who went missing in the years of Stalinist repression and purges. Today the historian was sent to prison on the basis of trumped-up cases.
“There should be a way that the person disappeared without a trace. A person must be grave. Because people are different from butterflies. The butterfly life is short and there is no memory and people’s memory must be. Memory makes us human and peoples by the peoples and not populations”.
These lines wrote a 61-year-old Yuri A. Dmitriev, historian and archaeologist, head of the Karelian branch of the Association “memorial”. The last 30 years of his life he devoted to the search for the bodies of missing people who were victims of Stalinist repression first and foremost, the purges of 1937-1938.
In 1997, after years of painstaking investigation he found in the middle of the Karelian forest near Sandarmoh one of the largest graves (236 graves with the remains of 9 thousand shot). In 2003, he found the burial place of several thousand prisoners who were sent for the construction of the white sea-Baltic canal (1931-1933). In 2006 they had found a mass grave with the remains of the dead and shot on the Solovetsky Islands.
In addition, all these years, Yuri Dmitriev was a single database, which today numbers more than 40 thousand names of those shot and deported to Karelia in 1930-1940-ies. From 13 December 2016 he is in prison in Petrozavodsk, the city where he was born and lived his entire life.
He is accused of making child pornography. In this regard, article 242, paragraph 2 of the criminal code of the Russian Federation he could face up to 15 years in prison. “Sewn” Dmitriev thing is evidently fabricated in the best traditions of the Stalinist era. He was detained on the basis of anonymous denunciation (he arrived at the Petrozavodsk law enforcement December 12, 2016) that in his house are stored the child pornography.
On December 1, when Dmitriev was in the police station on the “regular” agenda (they are periodically sent to all activists, NGOs and in particular the staff of “Memorial”), to his apartment visited one or more unknown. It was after this “visit”, which the historian the next day reported to the police, on his personal computer had found “incriminating material”.
What are you talking about? About the photos of his 11-year-old daughter. Having brought up two children (they are both now about 30 years old), Dmitriev, as Orthodox believer and pupil of children’s home, decided in 2008 to adopt three-year-old disabled girl from Petrozavodsk orphanage.
At the request of the Supervisory authorities and the attending physician girls Dmitriev had all these years to keep detailed records of her health and put her pictures in the Nude so that you can track the development of this disease (lower extremity, torso, back). These photos are child pornography!
After the arrest of Yuri Dmitriev in Russian social networks were collected a few tens of thousands of signatures for his release. Support to human rights expressed by many intellectuals, representatives of science and the public.
On the occasion of his 61 birthday last week, dozens of residents of Petrozavodsk took to the streets, holding a banner demanding to release him. At a great distance from each other. The fact that Russian law prohibits demonstrations with the participation of even two people. Not to break it, need to keep a distance of at least 50 meters from other “demonstrator”. Several people who openly expressed their support Dmitriyev, were detained and sent to the police for violation of the law. It looks like the democracy in the country, Vladimir Putin.
