AI announces Kuban lawyer Benyash prisoner of conscience

The human rights Amnesty International (AI) has demanded to release the lawyer Mikhail Benyash from administrative arrest. Benyash himself has explained that he came to the protest rally in Krasnodar on September 9 as a defender of the detainees.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on September 9, in Krasnodar, in the course of an unsanctioned march of opponents of the pension reform, dozens of people were detained, including Mikhail Benyash, who reported that he was beaten after detention. The court placed the lawyer under arrest for 14 days and sentenced him to 40 hours of compulsory works.

The AI treats Mikhail Benyash as a prisoner of conscience and demands to immediately release him, as well as to efficiently investigate his statement about beating, said Natalia Zvyagina, the director of the AI's Moscow office.

Mikhail Benyash himself explained that he came to the detainees at the march "to work with them." "With an advocate present, they beat detainees a little less," the "OVD-Info" quoted him as saying on September 11.

According to his assumption, they "wanted to isolate him in order to minimize the detainees' defence."

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 12, 2018 at 12:45 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.