Employees of the colony placed Yury Dmitriev, the head of the Karelian Memorial, in a special housing unit twice. The reason is that the historian did not greet the superintendent and did not put his hands behind his back. This was announced by Viktor Tumarkin, the Memorial OBD Project’s Chief Technology Officer, in social networks.
For the first time, Yury Dmitriev was sent to a special housing unit for three days on September 16, then for another five days on September 19. According to Tumarkin, the historian was thus isolated because recruiters arrived in the colony those days. He said that 150 people had been allegedly recruited in the colony then, and Dmitriev could have prevented this.
Dmitriev is currently in a correctional facility in Mordovia.
Dmitriev researched mass-casualty burials in Karelia since the 1980s; in 1997, together with representatives of the St. Petersburg Memorial, he discovered Sandarmokh, one of the largest burials of victims of Stalin’s terror.
Dmitriev was arrested in December 2016 and accused of taking pornographic pictures of his adopted daughter. The historian pleaded not guilty. He explained his actions by the fact that he had to keep a health journal of the adopted child, who needed extra care, control of physical development and health condition after the orphanage.
The Petrozavodsk City Court sentenced Yury Dmitriev, the head of the Karelian Memorial, to 15 years in a high-security prison in the end of December 2021. He was accused of production of child pornography, lewd act, and illegal possession of weapons.
This is a retrial of Dmitriev's case. In September 2020, the Supreme Court of Karelia sentenced the historian to 13 years in a high-security prison for sexual assault against a minor. The court sent cases on articles on production of child pornography, lewd act, and illegal possession of weapons for retrial.
Memorial recognized the historian as a political prisoner.
