The Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign is pleased to announce that Boris Kagarlitsky
was released from confinement on November 10, after spending the minimum of three days set by
prison regulations for applying this sadistic regime of deprivation of sleep, heating and contact with
other prisoners.
The news, which was conveyed to the Campaign by his daughter, Kseniya Kagarlitskaya, came as a
great relief to Kagatlisky’s supporters.
Confinement, especially solitary confinement, is a weapon used by the Putin regime to break detainees,
especially those political prisoners opposed to Russia's war on Ukraine, as Boris Kagarlitsky is.
According to the October 2024 report by UN Special Rapporteur Mariana Katzarova (Situation of
human rights in the Russian Federation): “Psychological torture in prisons, including by subjecting
detainees to prolonged solitary confinement in a punishment isolation cell (SHIZO), or banishment to a
psychiatric ward, can lead to death.”
Give Boris Kagarlitsky proper medical treatment!
The Campaign now demands that Kagarlitsky receive the hospital treatment for high blood pressure
that was promised to his lawyer Yulia Kuznetsova three weeks ago, on October 20.
Any delay will confirm the widespread suspicion of his supporters that Putin, in a repeat of his
treatment of Alexei Navalniy, is exploiting Kagarlitsky’s physical condition to “persuade” his best
known opponent on the Russian left from speaking out against the war and its social consequences.
The absurd pretext for Kagarlitsky’s confinement was that he had made a mess of his cell. Yet the
decision to place him in confinement not only came after prison authorities had promised that he would
receive proper hospital treatment.
It also followed the release on October 15 by the platform Vestnik Buri of a remarkable YouTube
interview with a digitally created Boris Kagarlitsky, which covers imprisonment, war, the leftist
movement in Russia and its prospects, Stalin, and the future.
(The original Russian text version of the interview is available on the Rabkor website while an English
translation is available on the web site of Links–International Journal of Socialist Renewal).
A frightened regime?
The fact that the YouTube version of the interview has been seen by over 55,000 viewers to date is
surely the material motive for Kagarlitsky’s three days in confinement, ordered over the heads of the
prison administration of Penal Colony No. 4 (IK-4) in Torzhok (Tver Region), where he is being held.
It is also a sign of the growing nervousness of the regime of Vladimir Putin, anxious that the repressed
opposition to its invasion of Ukraine could re-emerge beyond the usual circles of dissenters and again
engage the broader layers of the population. Their 2022 protests against the Kremlin’s “special military
operation” had to be brutally suppressed.
The Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign will keep the closest possible eye on
Kagarlitsky’s ongoing treatment at the hands of the Russian authorities.
We shall denounce each and every infraction of Kagarlitsky’s right as a detainee, while continuing to
demand the release of all anti-war political prisoners in the Russian Federation and the occupied
territories.
was released from confinement on November 10, after spending the minimum of three days set by
prison regulations for applying this sadistic regime of deprivation of sleep, heating and contact with
other prisoners.
The news, which was conveyed to the Campaign by his daughter, Kseniya Kagarlitskaya, came as a
great relief to Kagatlisky’s supporters.
Confinement, especially solitary confinement, is a weapon used by the Putin regime to break detainees,
especially those political prisoners opposed to Russia's war on Ukraine, as Boris Kagarlitsky is.
According to the October 2024 report by UN Special Rapporteur Mariana Katzarova (Situation of
human rights in the Russian Federation): “Psychological torture in prisons, including by subjecting
detainees to prolonged solitary confinement in a punishment isolation cell (SHIZO), or banishment to a
psychiatric ward, can lead to death.”
Give Boris Kagarlitsky proper medical treatment!
The Campaign now demands that Kagarlitsky receive the hospital treatment for high blood pressure
that was promised to his lawyer Yulia Kuznetsova three weeks ago, on October 20.
Any delay will confirm the widespread suspicion of his supporters that Putin, in a repeat of his
treatment of Alexei Navalniy, is exploiting Kagarlitsky’s physical condition to “persuade” his best
known opponent on the Russian left from speaking out against the war and its social consequences.
The absurd pretext for Kagarlitsky’s confinement was that he had made a mess of his cell. Yet the
decision to place him in confinement not only came after prison authorities had promised that he would
receive proper hospital treatment.
It also followed the release on October 15 by the platform Vestnik Buri of a remarkable YouTube
interview with a digitally created Boris Kagarlitsky, which covers imprisonment, war, the leftist
movement in Russia and its prospects, Stalin, and the future.
(The original Russian text version of the interview is available on the Rabkor website while an English
translation is available on the web site of Links–International Journal of Socialist Renewal).
A frightened regime?
The fact that the YouTube version of the interview has been seen by over 55,000 viewers to date is
surely the material motive for Kagarlitsky’s three days in confinement, ordered over the heads of the
prison administration of Penal Colony No. 4 (IK-4) in Torzhok (Tver Region), where he is being held.
It is also a sign of the growing nervousness of the regime of Vladimir Putin, anxious that the repressed
opposition to its invasion of Ukraine could re-emerge beyond the usual circles of dissenters and again
engage the broader layers of the population. Their 2022 protests against the Kremlin’s “special military
operation” had to be brutally suppressed.
The Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign will keep the closest possible eye on
Kagarlitsky’s ongoing treatment at the hands of the Russian authorities.
We shall denounce each and every infraction of Kagarlitsky’s right as a detainee, while continuing to
demand the release of all anti-war political prisoners in the Russian Federation and the occupied
territories.
