Novaya Gazeta, 16.10.2026

Photo: Lev Shlosberg / Photo by Pskov Yabloko

Lev Shlosberg, who is being held in custody pending the appeal against his sentence of 11 years and 1 month, has written an article for Novaya Gazeta on what should be done about political prisoners while hostilities continue. Yabloko’s Deputy Chairman is convinced that the release of political prisoners is an integral part of the transition to peace.

Today I am going to talk about people who have been deprived of their liberty for speaking out for peace and against ***.

These people are political prisoners. They appear in every country where human and civil rights and freedoms are restricted, denied and suppressed. They appear in every country whose authorities *** and do not wish to hear the voices of people with humanitarian and anti-war convictions. They appear in every country where the rule of force suppresses the force of law.

In times of ***, political prisoners are in effect captives deprived of their liberty by their own state. This is internal captivity, in which the state declares its own citizens enemies on purely political grounds and punishes them for exercising their constitutional rights and freedoms.

To persecute these citizens, articles are introduced into criminal legislation that explicitly classify dissent as an intentional criminal offence.

The punishment for one’s beliefs exceeds the punishment for premeditated murder, sexual violence, drug and arms trafficking, robbery and armed robbery. In other words, the state declares citizens who have not committed a single violent act, have not endangered anyone’s life and have not violated anyone’s rights or freedoms to be more dangerous criminals.

The demonstrative harshness of the punishments under these articles is meant to instil mass fear in society. The sentences handed down under these articles have become weapons of mass destruction.

These sentences are intended to make society, witnessing people’s suffering, their broken lives and the hardships of their families, fall silent and stop criticising the authorities, submit to the diktat of the state and stop resisting lawlessness.

In drafting these articles of the criminal law and in subsequently applying them, the right to an impartial and independent court is violated demonstratively and deliberately. With the adoption and application of these articles, political repression begins in the country. These articles are conceived from the outset as a mechanism of planned repression.

Is this repression on a mass scale? That is a rhetorical question. At what number does repression become mass repression? How many people must be deprived of their liberty under a repressive law for repression to be recognised as mass repression? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand?

I have an answer. Political repression is never a one-off. The first political prisoner is very soon followed by the tenth, the hundredth, the thousandth. Every politically motivated sentence gives rise to the next politically motivated sentence.

At the same time, the state openly refuses to recognise these prisoners as political. It regards them as common criminals and treats them in the same way as murderers, rapists and robbers.

The very fact that political prisoners have appeared in a country reflects the state’s profound political ill health and shows that the balance in relations between society and the state has been upset.

The appearance of political prisoners in our country is in obvious and direct contradiction with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948. UN member states recall less and less often this fundamental document, which was drawn up immediately after the Second World War, a war that shocked the world with its inhumanity. The preamble to the Declaration states that “disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind”.

The Declaration proclaimed as its mission “the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want”.

The Declaration established the extraterritorial status of human rights, which was an exceptional achievement of international law.

The principle of the extraterritoriality of human rights and freedoms means that a violation of the rights and freedoms of one person in one country is tantamount to a violation of the rights and freedoms of all people in all countries.

Article 3 of the Declaration states: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

Article 19 of the Declaration states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

If human rights and freedoms are violated in Russia, this means that human rights and freedoms are violated throughout the world.

If human rights and freedoms are violated in China, this means that human rights and freedoms are violated throughout the world.

If human rights and freedoms are violated in the United States, this means that human rights and freedoms are violated throughout the world.

This rule applies to all 193 member states of the UN.

What does this rule mean for political prisoners?

It means that the struggle to free political prisoners must be a priority for all states and governments that recognise the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Because the release of political prisoners is the state ceasing fire on its own citizens.

All the draft agreements on the transition from *** to peace that exist today must be assessed as to whether they include a condition for the immediate release of political prisoners in every signatory country.

However, every political prisoner, upon release, must be guaranteed and provided with the right to choose their country of residence. A person may leave their country only voluntarily.

The best and most dignified way to release political prisoners is an amnesty. It would demonstrate the state’s goodwill and be an act of mercy. An act of state mercy must become an integral part of the transition from *** to peace, because until the last political prisoner has been released, the *** cannot be considered over.

What should be done about political prisoners until the *** is over?

First, a mutual release of political prisoners can in itself be a gesture of goodwill, showing that states are moving from *** to peace. The release of political prisoners can come before a peace agreement.

Second, states can declare a moratorium on the application of politically motivated articles of the criminal law, which would halt the growth in the number of political prisoners.

Third, the world can no longer do without the adoption, under the auspices of the UN, of a covenant on the rights of political prisoners, similar to the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Owing to the extraterritoriality of human rights, this is absolutely necessary and inevitable.

The existence of political prisoners in today’s world means that UN member states and international institutions have failed to achieve the goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human rights today are not protected by the rule of law to the necessary and sufficient extent. Every day of a political prisoner’s life may turn out to be their last, because the state that has exercised its right to violence has proved all-powerful, while the outside world, which considers itself free, has proved indifferent and cynical.

Please remember: every political prisoner in the world has been deprived of liberty and is imprisoned for each of us, in place of each of us. Please remember this every day.