Nataliia Filonova

A resident of Buryatia. On 14 June 2011, she participated in the organisation of a gathering of citizens in connection with the closure of three small schools in Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky district, was detained while in the internal affairs department, declared a dry hunger strike, but despite this, at the suggestion of the representative of the prosecutor's office Maxim Semionov, the court arrested her for 15 days. After her release she appealed, during the hearing Semionov was called as a witness, and Filonova said that she did not want to communicate with the person who, knowing about the dry hunger strike, demanded 15 days of arrest for the woman. After that, a criminal case on insulting the representative of the prosecutor's office was initiated. During the investigation Filonova was detained for a psychiatric examination. On 31 August 2012, the day of the verdict, Filonova was attempted to be run over by a car while riding her bicycle with her child to the hospital. The court sentenced her to a 20,000 ruble fine (≈US$615 as of August 2012). She was forcibly taken to the investigator before the appeal court considered the case. The appeal instance sent the case for further investigation. In 2014, the court re-sentenced Filonova to the fine of 20 thousand rubles.

On 21 October 2022, Filonova was detained in a new criminal case: on the use of violence against representatives of the authorities. The pensioner refused the defence counsel appointed by the investigation, demanded that her public defender Nadezhda Nizovkina be allowed to see her and went on hunger strike. She also demanded that Nizovkina be allowed as a public defender at the court to decide on the measure of restraint, but the court refused on the grounds that the human rights defender did not have the status of a lawyer. Filonova was placed under house arrest. On 15 November it became known that another episode appeared in the case: Filonova is suspected of breaking a policeman's finger. She was detained and went on hunger strike. On 17 November Filonova was taken into custody, what happened after her husband had a heart attack, and her adopted son disappeared, and she went looking for him with an electronic bracelet on her leg. Nadezhda Nizovkina was questioned in the case as a witness, as a result of which she could no longer act as Filonova's defence counsel (a case was later brought against her for refusing to testify). In March 2023, it became known that the prosecutor's office returned the case to the investigator, and Filonova's adopted son was sent to an orphanage. On 31 August 2023, Filonova was sentenced to two years and ten months in a general regime colony. In March 2024 it became known that Filonova was deprived of access to the library in the colony after she read "In the depths of Siberian ores..." and a response poem by Alexander Odoevsky at a Pushkin memorial evening. Filonova was released from prison on 4 March 2025.