Igor Paskar, Volgograd resident, complains about beating at SIZO

Igor Paskar from Volgograd, sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for setting fire to a rug near the FSB building in Krasnodar, has been transferred to the SIZO (pre-trial prison) in Novocherkassk. The SIZO staff has placed him into a cell with supporters of the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine, who beat him up on the very first day, human rights defenders have informed.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in his last plea, Igor Paskar stated that he had set fire to a rug near the FSB building in Krasnodar and a banner with the Z sign "at the behest of his conscience" and would not renounce his convictions.

According to the human rights project "Solidarity Zone" that references Paskar, he was placed into a cell with supporters of the SMO in Ukraine; and some of them identified themselves as participants therein. When he came in, his cellmates asked him to tell what he was convicted for; and what he told outraged them. One of them asked to read the indictment. "And there ... it is said that at the rally I put the flag of Ukraine onto my face. Not to say that I was badly beaten up, but I got a couple of cracks," Igor Paskar has written, noting that after the incident, the SIZO bosses transferred him to another cell, where cellmates were not so aggressive, the project's Telegram channel reports.