Ilia Baburin
Novosibirsk
27 yr old (born in 09.10.1999)
Address: 660075, Красноярский край, г. Красноярск, ул. Республики, 72, ФКУ СИЗО-1 ГУФСИН России по Красноярскому краю, Бабурин Илья Николаевич, 1999 г.р.
Resident of Novosibirsk. He was detained in the autumn of 2022 on charges of attempted arson of military enlistment offices in Kirovsky and Leninsky districts. During the search, law enforcers seized from him a book by American war correspondent William Shirer, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", BBC Russian Service quotes lawyer Vasily Dubkov as saying that the investigation was thus trying to prove Baburin's adherence to Nazism. Initially it was reported that he was charged with attempted organisation of a terrorist attack, but later it became known that he was accused of the organisation. Baburin was taken into custody. Later he was also charged with involvement in terrorist activities.
On 29 September 2022, one day before the reports about Baburin, it became known that a local resident had been detained in connection with an attempted arson attack on military recruitment offices in Kirovsky and Leninsky districts. It is unknown whether this also referred to Baburin.
In the pre-trial detention centre Baburin was subjected to abuse: he was placed in a disciplinary cell and a "psychisolator", a special cell with rubber walls in which prisoners prone to self-harm should be placed, where he was completely stripped and given no underwear. Cellmates were told by the administration that Baburin had allegedly filed a complaint against them. In addition, he was not given the books and magazines to which he subscribed.
On 1 April 2023, it became known that Baburin was additionally charged with attempted treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code with application of part 3 of Article 30 of the Criminal Code): this is how the investigation qualified the same organisation of the arson attack on the military recruitment office "in order to assist" the Azov battalion "in carrying out activities against the security of the Russian Federation".
On 27 September 2023, Baburin was beaten by escorts. The lawyer demanded the recusal of the investigator and filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office. The next day, three girls, including Baburin's girlfriend, were searched, she was not released after the interrogation, and her lawyer was not allowed to see her. Later she was released from the investigator in the status of a witness.
On October 11. Baburin was placed in the disciplinary cell.
In December 2023, it became known that Baburin was charged with four more articles: illegal trafficking in special technical means for covertly obtaining information because of the GPS-beacon found during the search, committing a terrorist act because of the arson of a music school, with which, according to the Solidarity Zone, Baburin had nothing to do, as well as participation in an illegal armed formation and in the activities of a terrorist organisation on charges of involvement in the Azov regiment - a charge Baburin also denies. According to him, when he bought the GPS-beacon, he did not know that it had a built-in microphone. He notes that he bought the device to keep an eye on the car he was going to rent out. Solidarity Zone suggests that the insides of the "beacon" could have been replaced before the examination. In addition, the investigator refuses the defenders' request for a second examination.
On 20 May 2024 Baburin was sentenced to 25 years in a strict regime colony.
Ilia Baburin
will receive your letter
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How else can I support Russian dissidents?
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It says that the prisoner I was assigned was tried for terrorism, or extremism or something else scary, what’s up with that?
The Kremlin is using scary labels to justify its repression against innocent people.
Of course, a sentence for terrorism does not necessarily mean that a person is a political prisoner (unlike, for example, a sentence for «spreading fake news about the Russian army»). And yet we can say that there are at least several groupings of political crackdowns using the threat of terror as a pretext to go after innocents.
First, hundreds of people have been sentenced to long terms due to their alleged involvement in the Islamist party of Hizb ut-Tahrir — this is used primarily as a pretext for crackdowns on Crimean Tatars. The party was banned as a terrorist organization, although there is no evidence that it had any connection with terrorist activity in Russia or Crimea.
Second, the article on calls for terrorism or justification of terrorism (Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code) is considered a «terrorist» article, and is increasingly being applied to those who, due to their disagreement with the war, allow themselves to make harsh statements against the Kremlin.
Third, since the beginning of the war, the authorities have begun to regard the arson of military registration and enlistment offices as terrorist attacks, although there has not been a single case of anyone being seriously harmed by these protest arsons.
Finally, there are a number of cases in which terrorist activity, including through falsification of evidence, is attributed to opponents of the Kremlin. This is done in order to reduce their support in society and put them behind bars for a long time. The article on state treason is used in a similar manner.
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