Russian politician Leonid Gozman, 72, has been released from a detention centre in Moscow after 30 days of arrest, a Novaya Gazeta. Europe correspondent reports. He was arrested twice in a row for 15 days for equating the actions of the USSR and Nazi Germany.
“I’m very glad they released me. I thought they’d arrest me for the third and fourth time… But for some reason, they didn’t. I want to thank everyone who supported me. I am proud of my daughter who organised the entire campaign, and of my wife. If they don’t come for me in the next two hours, then everything is fine.
I was alone in my cell, but the girls detained at the latest protests left me a message in the yard. It said: ‘Women political prisoners say hi to Leonid Gozman,’” he said.
On 30 August, a Moscow court arrested Gozman for 15 days for equating the actions of the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Facebook post that he was charged for reads: “Hitler is the absolute evil, but Stalin is worse. The SS are criminals, but the NKVD [the Soviet police and secret police] are worse, because they murdered their own. Hitler declared a war on mankind. The communists declared total war on their own people.”
On 13 September, he was detained upon his exit from the detention centre. The next day, he received another 15-day sentence on the same charges, this time for a 2013 LiveJournal post.
The politician was previously hit with criminal charges for failing to notify the Russian official bodies of his second citizenship. On 25 July, Gozman was placed on Russia’s wanted list. He was detained in the Moscow metro on the same day and later released.
