Today, September 4, 2023, Azat Miftakhov was arrested by the FSB agents immediately upon his release from the correctional colony in Omutninsk.
Azat has been in detention since February 2019, originally in the infamous “broken window” case related to a political protest at a United Russia party office. At that time of that arrest Azat was a mathematics graduate student at the Moscow State University.
Azat endured torture, threats, and other mistreatment by the Russian authorities while imprisoned. After a trial marked by widespread judicial abuses and the use of “secret witnesses”, in January 2021 in a grotesquely unjust and politically motivated verdict Azat was convicted of “hooliganism” and sentenced to five years in prison. Azat was widely recognized as a political prisoner and his bravery and perseverance inspired thousands of supporters, both in Russia and abroad. Azat was finally scheduled to be released on parole on September 4 from the prison colony in Omutninsk where he had been serving his sentence. All supporters of Azat, including the international mathematical community, have been looking forward to his release, and a massive solidarity action, The International Day for the Liberation of Azat Miftakhov, was held around the world on September 2.
Instead, Azat has been detained once again by the FSB, just as he exited the Omutninsk colony to meet his family, still in his prison robes. The FSB fabricated a new criminal charge against Azat, under Article 205.2, part I of the Russian Criminal Code, “publicly justifying terrorism.” The FSB claims that Azat spoke approvingly about a terrorist act in a conversation with two other prisoners in May of this year, after watching a TV program. It appears that this new false case against Azat was concocted in July-August while Azat was held in isolation after a series of artificially imposed punishments by the colony authorities. Azat was taken to Kirov, where a court hearing on his subsequent detention will take place tomorrow, September 5.
Azat Miftakhov is a brilliant young mathematician who came to embody the hopes of many for a free and democratic Russia. The new criminal case against him manufactured by the FSB is an outrageous travesty. These brutal Stalinist tactics must stop. Azat must be freed, immediately. The international mathematical community stands with him.
The case of Azat Miftakhov 