Richard Rose

On 14 April 2022, he was detained using force and during interrogation was threatened with violence against his wife and the removal of his child. The court later placed Rose in custody. In the pre-trial detention centre, he was pressured to confess, threatening that otherwise his wife would also be placed in detention, his son would be taken to an orphanage, and Rose himself would be transferred to live with the “offended” inmates, and in general his conditions would become unbearable. In addition, the investigator announced that his contracted attorney could no longer defend him. Rose refused thereafter to answer any questions about the case or to commit to process in the presence of government-assigned attorney. At one of the trials, Rose said that he had been severely beaten by law enforcement officers during his detention. Later he [wrote] (https://ovd.news/express-news/2022/12/16/kirovchanin-presleduemyy-iz-za-antivoennyh-postov-rasskazal-ob-ugrozah) to a friend that he was being threatened with physical violence in the pre-trial detention centre. He does not receive letters and his letters do not reach their addressees either. He has been forbidden to call his family. In August 2023, it was reported that during a search in his cell almost all his books and personal belongings were taken away; he is denied phone calls, his letters are only from two addressees, and his own letters do not get sent out.

On 22 September 2023, Rose was sentenced to eight years in a general regime colony. His wife reported that he was not given letters and was also denied making phone calls despite the court’s permission.

In April 2024, it was revealed that Richard Rose was again being pressured in pre-trial detention: he was sent to a rubber-walled temporary isolation cell for four days after he protested against having his notes, poems and a draft of a story taken away from him. There, in his words, he was kept naked. He was not allowed to go to the toilet, so he decided to give up food for a while to avoid having to defecate in his cell. Rose was then told he would be placed in a disciplinary cell for six days because he had allegedly slept during the day.

You can read more about politically persecuted people in the Telegram channel OVD-Info LIVE and our politically motivated criminal prosecutions in Russia database