The story of Svetlana Bakhmina, a former lawyer for Yukos who has been arrested and held in jail for more than six years for doing nothing more than perform her job, is one of the saddest in a long history of judicial travesties surrounding the persecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky (the medical blackmail of Alexanian is probably a close second). Today Reuters reports that that she has been denied her request for parole, despite her condition as a pregnant mother-of-two. It is outrageous, tragic, and incomprehensibly disproportionate and cruel what these gangsters who call themselves officials have done to this poor woman in the name of intimidation. We get the message already, OK, siloviki? When one tries to defend their rightful and legitimate interests through the courts in Russia, they will be criminalized. Her unlawful imprisonment has already served its purpose, so let this deserving mother go home to her children. From Reuters:

Yevgeny Kuzmin, judge at the court in the Zubovo-Polyansky district of the Mordovia region in central Russia where Bakhmina is being held in a penal colony, said he had heard her parole application on September 10. “She was denied release,” Kuzmin told Reuters by telephone. “The reason for the denial is in the court’s resolution, but this resolution is only available to parties in the case.”