Yevgenia Berkovich has been sent to the SHIZO for the third time

In the punishment isolation cell, Berkovich is being held without the medication she needs, and colony staff explained this by saying that the prison doctor is on leave. Earlier, she had already complained about the lack of medication and about relatives not being allowed to pass it to her while she was in the pre-trial detention center.

According to Novaya Gazeta, all three times Berkovich was placed in the SHIZO were punishments for minor violations of prison rules. She is now serving a six-year sentence under the article on justifying terrorism.

In July 2024, the 2nd Western District Military Court in Moscow sentenced Berkovich to six years in prison after more than a year in the pre-trial detention center. The court handed down the same sentence to playwright Svetlana Petriychuk; both were found guilty of justifying terrorism because of the play Finist, the Bright Falcon about Russian women who marry radical Islamists in Syria.

Berkovich opposed the war in Ukraine. On September 20, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, on CNN, called on US presidential special envoys Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner to raise the issue of Russian political prisoners and help facilitate exchanges between Russia and Western countries; he also mentioned Berkovich.

Sources

• Radio Liberty