Transcribing the Past

  Translated into English from an Esperanto language article hosted at Neniammilitointerni .  Since 2019 Azat Miftakhov has been imprisoned by the authorities of the Russian Federation. Azat is a young Mathematician and doctoral student at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, and an Anarchist activist. He was sent to pre-trial detention for two years before being sentenced to a six-year prison term on trumped-up charges based on false testimony acquired through torture.  In fact, one of the two accusers whose testimony alleged that Azat threw a smoke grenade through the window of the office of United Russia, the political party of Putin, was conveniently found to have died before a cross-examination could take place.  A third "witness" is now a refuge in France and in March 2023 wrote to the online journal Mediapart, describing the torture he received by the FSB to secure a denunciation of Azat. Currently, that testimony has not been used against Azat, but it could...

    Link  https://youtu.be/oXbyVHE57D8 Here's a short video recorded by three anonymous inmates of the prison in Arles. It details conditions and the grievances of the detained population. Note: The transcription is of the translated subtitles from the video. Though some parts were confusing, so I re-worded some passages to make the meaning clearer. Though some references escaped me so I chose to leave them intact. Arles, Prisoners Statement 2001 This video was released in October 2001 by 3 prisoners from the Arles prison in the South of France. Translation was difficult as the statement often refers to French reality. We hope it is understandable, and we hope this video will be played abroad as much as possible. Statement Before reading this statement we must clarify that we are hooded in order to avoid the personalisation of the current action. We are just long sentenced prisoners among others. The message that we carry is the one...