03 May 2016, Tuesday

Anzor Mashukov was sentenced in 2014 to life imprisonment for taking part in an armed attack in the city of Nalchik in 2014. During the court proceedings, he repeatedly asked to be allowed longer meetings with family members. His requests were rejected and he was denied the right to private and family life, including contact and communication with his wife and small children.

The Russian Federation Constitutional Court found no evidence of violation of constitutional provisions in the refusal to allow detainees long meetings with family members. This was indicated in the ruling of February 7, 2013, on the case of applicants B. Kh. Pshibiyev and A. B. Berov, who Russian Justice Initiative earlier represented with a similar complaint in the ECHR (Pshibiyev and Berov, No 63748/13).

Russian Justice Initiative filed a complaint with the ECHR for violation of article 8 of the Convention – right to respect for private and family life.  

“We think that the current laws regulating rules for allowing meetings in remand prisons for people not yet found guilty by the courts not only violate the terms of article 8 of the Convention but are evidence of discrimination towards this group of people”, said Rustam Matsev, a lawyer with Russian Justice Initiative. “The lawmakers do not deprive sentenced and convicted persons of the right to long meetings with families and people close to them”.  

Anzor Mashukov, one of those sentenced in the Case of the 58, was sentenced by the Kabardino-Balkaria Supreme Court to life imprisonment. The state accuses him of a number of serious crimes, participation in a criminal group, active involvement in an armed uprising, attempted murder of law enforcement officers, unlawful possession of weapons and other crimes.

Anzor Mashukov was detained 6 months after the events of 2005. His lawyer, Olga Kelemetova, said that he was effectively abducted from the territory of another country – Abkhazia. 

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