SCO summit against a background of torture

Grigory Pasko, journalist

I recently visited Yekaterinburg. The city is literally flooded with police in reflective vests. The word «security» is heard time and again on the streets. On the television, all the news shows begin with a report about how the capital of Sverdlovsk Oblast is preparing for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Human rights advocates Sergey Beliayev and Vladimir Shakleyin told me about the preparation of a rally in defense of Alexey Sokolov (Vladimir Shakleyin, by the way, is the lawyer of Yelena Maglevannaya, who was successfully sued by the prison authorities of Volgograd Oblast for a 200,000 rubles because she published investigative articles about cases of torture and abuse within the prison system).

It turns out that Sokolov’s experience with the authorities is not all that different, and his supporters are hoping to take advantage of the SCO summit to bring attention to his case.