Arseniy Turbin, a 16-year-old Russian schoolboy considered the country’s youngest political prisoner, has reported being subjected to beatings by his cellmates in a Moscow detention center, according to the independent Mediazona news website on Tuesday.
Turbin, who is serving a five-year sentence in a juvenile colony for allegedly attempting to join the Freedom of Russia Legion, detailed the abuse in an October 1 letter to his mother. He wrote that a cellmate named Azizbek had hit him on the head twice with a fist and threatened further violence.
“The atmosphere is very heavy, critical,” Turbin wrote. “Azizbek beat me and told me that at night I would be f***ed. The night will be very hard. But I will hold on.”
Turbin’s mother informed Mediazona that her son was also placed in solitary confinement for a week in September following a conflict in his cell.
The teenager was sentenced in June, at age 15, on charges of “participating in terrorist activities.” Prosecutors accused him of attempting to join the Freedom of Russia Legion, a paramilitary unit of Russian nationals fighting for Ukraine, which Moscow has designated as a terrorist organization.
Mediazona reports that FSB investigators may have falsified evidence in Turbin’s case. While FSB agents claimed Turbin admitted during a recorded interrogation that he “planned to join the legion and send in a completed questionnaire,” a transcript published by Mediazona shows no such admission despite apparent attempts by agents to lead him.
The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Memorial human rights organization has designated Turbin as a political prisoner. Russia’s state financial watchdog added Turbin to its list of “terrorists and extremists” last fall.
Turbin’s case has drawn attention to the treatment of young detainees in Russia’s justice system and raised concerns about the prosecution of minors in politically sensitive cases.
themoscowtimes.com
