DiaNuke.org

When Russia’s FSB security service raided Fyodor Maryasov’s apartment in Siberia last year, the authorities seized his computer and a scathing report he had compiled about Rosatom, the Kremlin-owned nuclear corporation. Among other things, the authorities accused him of inciting hatred against nuclear industry employees, an unusual charge that carries a maximum sentence of five years behind bars. “They accused me of revealing state secrets in my report,” the 49-year-old environmental activist says. “But every single thing in it was taken from open sources.”

On Thursday, May 11th, 2017 German anti-nuclear activist Hanna Poddig went to the prison of Hildesheim (Lower Saxony state) in order to serve her sentence of up to 110 days imprisonment.

When Hanna went to prison on Thursday, she was accompanied by about 30 people in solidarity, carrying lots of anti-nuclear banners. Lasting for longer than a day, a manifestation was held in front of the prison, where people could write postcards to the prisoner. Last time, when Hanna was sentenced for blocking a nuclear train, local prison director Oliver Wessels paid the fine from his own pockets to avoid further public attention.

Nadejda Koutepova’s story goes from the Soviet past to the Russia of today. She has been fighting unrelentingly for the last fifteen years to get recognition of the nuclear disaster which began in the Urals in 1949. She found herself under attack in 2012 when the Kremlin began clamping down on NGOs, in particular ones concerned with the military and the environment. Threatened with prosecution, she finally left her country in July.