We are writing once again to draw the attention of the international mathematical and scientific community to the case of Azat Miftakhov. Azat, a mathematics graduate student at the Moscow State University, was arrested by the Russian authorities in February 2019 in relation to a political protest, tortured while in jail and eventually convicted in January 2021 by a court in Moscow on the false charge of “hooliganism.” Azat was given a grotesquely excessive six-year prison sentence which he is currently serving at a penal colony in Omuntinsk.
Last week in interviews to DOXA and to Novaya Gazeta, Azat Miftakhov’s wife Elena Gorban made public some important information about Azat’s situation in prison. Shortly after Azat’s initial arrest in 2019, the FSB used Azat’s bisexuality to out him to the other prisoners at the pre-trial detention jail by showing them intimate photographs of Azat seized during the search of his apartment in Moscow. As a result, the FSB ensured that Azat would be labelled as a member of the “offended”/“lowered” caste, the lowest status in the Russian prison caste hierarchy. This status remained attached to Azat after his transfer to the prison colony in Omutninsk. The “lowered” constitute the most vulnerable category of prisoners; they are routinely targeted for mistreatment and sexual violence, subjected to social isolation, given harsher and demeaning punishments and assigned particularly undesirable jobs. A similar “lowered” social caste has existed in the Russian military since the Soviet times. In view of the extreme level of homophobia in Russian society, LGBT prisoners are particularly vulnerable in the Russian prison system and are routinely branded as “lowered”.
Recently the Russian authorities have been assigning “lowered” status to political prisoners as a way of exerting additional pressure on them. This was also the FSB’s apparent goal in their outing of Azat to the other prisoners. DOXA reported on this practice in March 2023; that report included the story of Azat where he is referred to by the pseudonym “Pasha”.
Azat reports that, while serving his sentence at the prison colony in Omutninsk, he is managing his “offended” designation fairly well and that his status as a political prisoner affords him some additional protections. Nevertheless, he continues to experience negative consequences of belonging to the “offended” caste, including ritualized social segregation.
Despite continued worries about Azat’s safety, Azat and Elena decided to make the above information public at this point, particularly to draw attention to the mistreatment of prisoners in the Russian prison system.
The Azat Miftakhov Committee condemns the FSB’s cynical and underhanded use of Azat’s private life, which put him in significant extra danger while imprisoned. We are extremely concerned about Azat’s safety as well as about recent reports indicating that the FSB may be in the process of fabricating a new criminal charge against Azat. We continue to demand Azat’s immediate and unconditional release, so that he can resume his life as a mathematician and a citizen.
The case of Azat Miftakhov 