IAPL Monitoring Committee on Attacks on Lawyers Russia: Woman human rights defender and lawyer Elena Pershakova’s apartment raided

On 20 May 2023, law enfocement officers in Perm raided the apartment of woman human rights defender and lawyer Elena Pershakova for six hours. During the raid, the authorities seized the woman human rights defender’s phone, laptop, hard drive and work-related documents. The Federal Security Service in the city of Perm scheduled Elena Pershakova’s questioning for 24 May 2023. It is not yet clear if there are any charges being brought against the woman human rights defender or if she will be questioned as a witness.

Elena Pershakova is a woman human rights defender and lawyer. She is head of the legal team of the Public Verdict Foundation. The Public Verdict Foundation was established in February 2004 as a non-profit organisation offering legal assistance to victims of human rights violations by law enforcement officers in Russia. The Public Verdict Foundation works to promote a climate of non-tolerance of abusive law enforcement practices in Russia, and to ensure civilian oversight of Russian law enforcement. In her litigation work, Elena Pershakova focuses on civic freedoms.

Elena Pershakova has been representing Perm Memorial, a human rights organisation and member of the International Memorial Network, since 2019, when representatives of the organisation were targeted during an expedition into the Perm region’s Galyashor tract. The purpose of this expedition was to study the cemetery of the Lithuanian and Polish settlement, which was established as a result of Soviet occupation and a policy of forced displacement of various ethnic groups in the region. The Russian authorities accused representatives of the Perm Memorial of “illegal occupation of forest land” and charged the local resident who hosted the expedition with illegal registration of foreign citizens. The documents that were seized during the raid on Elena Pershakova’s apartment pertained to her work on this case.

The raid on Elena Pershakova’s apartment in Perm is related to the persecution of the chairperson of the Perm Memorial, Robert Latypov, and the chairperson of the Centre of Historic Memory, Aleksandr Chernyshov. Both are being accused of attempted smuggling of cultural property, which is a criminal offence as stipulated by part 2 of Article 226.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

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https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/woman-human-rights-defender-and-lawyer-elena-pershakovas-apartment-raided

https://khpg.org/en/1608812291

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/europe/article/2023/04/27/in-russia-lawyers-are-caught-in-the-kremlin-s-crosshairs_6024596_143.html

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/05/first-un-human-rights-expert-russian-federation-takes-office