Members of the Free Russia Forum have every reason to believe that drugs were planted on Mikhail Savostin and that the real reason for his persecution is his human rights and opposition activities.
On March 5, 2018, Mikhail Savostin, a public and political activist, was arrested in the town of Mineralnye Vody, Stavropol krai. He was charged with possession and transportation of drugs for the purpose of sale.
Mikhail Savostin has long been well known in the human rights and journalistic community, among civil and political activists. He is the chairman of the regional branch of the Trade Union of Entrepreneurs Solidarity and a member of the political council of the Assembly of Peoples of the Caucasus. Over the past 10 years, he has repeatedly participated in elections at various levels in Stavropol krai for the political parties Parnas and Yabloko. He has organized dozens of rallies and other protest actions in the Caucasian Mineralnye Vody. He was actively involved in human rights work.
All those who came into contact with Mikhail in his very busy public activities are convinced of the absurdity of the charges brought against him. He is known as a man with a keen sense of justice, deeply committed to the principles of legality, alien to any criminality. He is always ready to unselfishly and selflessly protect public interests and help people. He is scrupulously decent in human relations.
Mikhail was a participant of three Free Russia Forums. He was supposed to take part in the V Forum of Free Russia on April 11-12, 2018. By a strange coincidence, it was on the eve of the V Forum that he was arrested.
Participants of the Free Russia Forum have every reason to believe that drugs were planted on Mikhail Savostin and that the real reason for his persecution is his human rights and opposition activities. The participants of the Free Russia Forum draw the attention of the international community to the fact that provocations by law enforcement agencies involving the planting of drugs have long ago become a common method of fabricating criminal cases against persons undesirable to the Russian authorities, and that the practice of issuing ordered court rulings in the Russian Federation actually deprives the victim of such provocation of the possibility of obtaining the truth through Russian courts. We consider Mikhail Savostin a political prisoner and ask the international community to support him as much as possible.
