Former co-chair of Samara PARNAS branch has spent more than 130 days in a punitive isolation cell

Andrei Balin, former co-chair of the Samara branch of PARNAS and now imprisoned over anti-war posts, has spent more than 130 days in a punitive isolation cell. This was reported by Natalia Pelevina, a former PARNAS member, citing the political prisoner’s relatives.

‘In violation of the law, Andrei is not given medical examinations when his time in the punishment cell is extended, and he isn’t even told the reasons for being held there,’ Pelevina writes.

Andrei Balin was first placed in the punishment cell on 29 April. At the time, he said that pressure on him had increased after a conversation with an FSB officer, during which the political prisoner told the officer that the FSB would ‘soon come to an end’. The activist predicted he would not be released before the end of the summer, and that prediction came true.

Andrei Balin, a resident of Tolyatti, was sentenced in 2023 to seven years in a general-regime penal colony over six anti-war posts, under the article criminalising the spread of ‘fake news’ about the Russian army motivated by hatred (Article 207.3, Part 2, Paragraph ‘e’ of the Russian Criminal Code). He is serving his sentence at Penal Colony No. 10 in Volzhsky, Samara Oblast.

Andrei Balin has been involved in political activity since 2012, when he organised a rally titled ‘For Russia! Against Putin’ in Tolyatti, then joined the People’s Freedom Party (PARNAS) and was elected to the leadership of its regional branch. In 2014, he was sentenced to 100 hours of compulsory labour over a case of inciting hatred (Article 282, Part 1 of the Russian Criminal Code); in 2016, his home was searched in connection with another case under the same article. In 2022, the opposition figure was fined in administrative cases over calling for sanctions (Article 20.3.4 of the Russian Administrative Offences Code) and ‘discrediting’ the Russian army (Article 20.3.3 of the Russian Administrative Offences Code).