Yury Dmitriev | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Yury Dmitriev, 2007 | |
| Native name | Юрий Алексеевич Дмитриев |
| Born | Yury Alexeyevich Dmitriev 28 January 1956 Petrozavodsk, Karelo-Finnish SSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics |
| Occupation | Human rights activist, researcher into deportation, and author imprisonment and executions in 1930s |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Citizenship |  Russia |
| Alma mater | Leningrad Medical College |
| Notable awards | Golden Pen of Russia (2005)
Gold Cross of Merit, Poland (2015) Honorary Diploma of the Karelian Republic (2016) While in custody Sakharov Prize for "Journalism as an Act of Conscience", Moscow (2017) "Moscow Helsinki Group" award (2018) "Sakharov Freedom award", Oslo (2021) |
| Spouse | twice married |
| Children | Son Yegor, daughter Katerina (Klodt); adopted daughter Natasha |
Yury Alexeyevich Dmitriev (Russian: Юрий Алексеевич Дмитриев; born 28 January 1956, Petrozavodsk) is a local historian and activist in Karelia (Northwest Russia). Since the early 1990s, he has worked to locate the execution sites of Stalin's Great Terror in Karelia and, through work in the archives, to identify as many as possible of the buried victims they contain.[1][2] He has worked continually since the late 1980s to compile "Books of Remembrance" for Karelia, listing all the names of those executed there.
On 13 December 2016 Dmitriev was arrested and charged with making pornographic images of his foster daughter, Natasha, who was 11 at the time.[3][4] From the outset Dmitriev's colleagues declared the charges to be baseless and motivated by a determination to discredit the historian and his work. The closed trial attracted national and international attention and criticism.[5] On 26 December 2017, a second assessment by a court-appointed body of the photographs of his foster daughter concluded that they contained no element of pornography and had been taken, as the accused insisted, to monitor the health of a sickly child.[6]
On 5 April 2018, Dmitriev was acquitted of all but one minor offence. Within two months he was arrested and soon put on trial again. Given a short sentence at the end of his second trial in July 2020, the verdict was overruled by the High Court of Karelia and the charges returned for an unprecedented third judicial examination. Dmitriev and his lawyer Victor Anufriev battled through the courts in Petrozavodsk, St Petersburg and Moscow to have their appeal against the verdict and sentence heard. In October 2021 the case finally reached the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. But on December 27 his sentence was increased to 15 years.
Dmitriev is a Russian Orthodox Christian.[7]
- ^ Their Names Returned: Russia's Books of Remembrance website (Возвращенные имена.Книги памяти России), Search: "Sandarmokh", "Kniga pamyati Karelii", 4,974 names (accessed 7 August 2017).
- ^ Alexander Daniel, "He roused the Dragon", Rights in Russia, Weekly Update, No. 23 (256) 12 June 2017. Russian source: Zoya Svetova, "The Dmitriev Case and the Dragon of the Great Terror", Open Russia.
- ^ Yekaterina Fomina, "'Papa said he'd sort everything out': Karelian historian Yu. Dmitriev is accused of making pornography using his own daughter", Novaya gazeta, 21 December 2016, (in Russian).
- ^ "The charges". dmitrievaffair.com. October 15, 2017.
- ^ Ayres, Sabra (24 July 2017). "An outspoken researcher of Stalin's crimes fights for his own fate and freedom in Russia". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2019-06-06.
- ^ "Photos not pornographic, say new forensic experts". dmitrievaffair.com. December 27, 2017.
- ^ "Дело Юрия Дмитриева". "Дело" Дмитриева (in Russian). Archived from the original on Dec 20, 2021.