Igor Paskar complains about censorship in prison

Letters to Igor Paskar, a Volgograd resident, convicted of setting fire to a rug near the FSB building in Krasnodar, are arriving intermittently; and the prison administration prohibits him from receiving newspapers and books, human rights defenders have complained. According to their version, censorship prohibits access to certain news items; for example, Paskar was not allowed to read about the prisoner exchange.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on September 19, the cassation instance refused to satisfy the appeal complaint against the verdict to Igor Paskar, sentenced to 8.5 years in jail for committing a terror act and vandalism. While in jail, Paskar decided to write an autobiography, but the administration confiscated the manuscript.

Igor Paskar receives letters with breaks, since some of them are probably stopped by the censorship, the organization "Solidarity Zone", which supports political prisoners, believes.

Besides, this organization is trying to get the prison administration to give Paskar the opportunity to subscribe to newspapers and receive books.

Sergey Davidis, the head of the independent human rights project "Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial", has noted that the project recognized Paskar as a political prisoner, since, according to Sergey, the accusation of committing a terror act against him is "unlawful." "His actions didn't intimidate population, created no threat of death or causing significant property damage. He also didn't try to destabilize the authorities' activities, since he had no intent to burn down the FSB building – he just set fire to a doormat. Thus, his actions contained no elements listed in the terror act article (Article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Besides, he didn't try to hide, since for him it was a purely symbolic action. His punishment was clearly disproportionate to the offense and politically motivated," Mr Davidis has stated.