Members of the Human Rights Council and academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences asked Putin to influence the DPR on the issue of the death penalty

Today, on August 10, members of the Presidential Council for Human Rights (HRC) and a number of academic scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request to “abandon the death penalty in the Donetsk People’s Republic.” This was told to Kommersant by a member of the HRC Eva Merkacheva. A copy of the letter sent to the president is available to Kommersant.

“We ask you for mercy. We ask you to propose to the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic to extend the moratorium on the use of the death penalty to the Donetsk People’s Republic,” says the appeal, which was signed by 11 people, including members of the Human Rights Council, film director Alexander Sokurov and human rights activist Natalia Evdokimova, as well as former council member Academician Alexander Asmolov (he announced his resignation from the HRC on March 6 due to “inconsistency between what is happening around human rights”; the president has not yet signed a decree on the rotation of the HRC) and journalist Zoya Svetova. Professors of the Russian Academy of Sciences, mathematician Alexander Bufetov, chemist Yaroslav Kudryavtsev, linguist Svetlana Burlak, physicist Alexander Chaplik, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nikolai Rozanov are also listed among the authors of the appeal.

Recall that on July 9, the court of the DPR sentenced to the death penalty of British subjects – 28-year-old Aiden Aslin and 48-year-old Sean Pinner, as well as a citizen of Morocco, 21-year-old Saadoun Brahim. All three were taken prisoner in the Donbass, they were charged with participating in hostilities as part of the Ukrainian armed forces as mercenaries. Later, on July 12, the abolition of the moratorium on the death penalty came into force in the DPR.

In May, the head of the DPR, Denis Pushilin, said that the cases of Ukrainian prisoners of war of the Azov unit (recognized as a terrorist organization, banned in the Russian Federation) would be decided by the court. According to him, “if they are Nazi criminals,” a tribunal awaits them. Today, Mr. Pushilin said that the first prisoner-of-war tribunal in Mariupol will probably take place before the end of summer. According to him, the authorities are striving for the most open process of holding a military court.

What happens after the entry of Russian troops into Ukraine – in online broadcasts “b”.

Maria Starikova