Dmitry Bogatov has spent 106 days in pretrial detention in Moscow. He's now waiting for trial under house arrest.

 

Who is he?

Software developer, math lecturer at Moscow’s Finance and Law University, free software supporter, Debian and GNU projects contributor, esperantist. 

What is he accused of?

The prosecution believes that Bogatov posted extremist materials in the internet. He is accused of part 2 of article 205.2 of Russian Criminal code (incitement of terrorist activities or justifying terrorism via the Internet), part 1 of article 30, part 1 of article 212 (arrangement of preparation of mass riots).According to the case, somebody posted 2 messages on website sysadmins.ru on 29 March. Airat Bashirov accessed his account from 104 different IP adresses located in different countries, including Dmitry Bogatov's IP address.To substantiate the need of Bogatov's arrest investigator pointed to video showing "mass riots and police disobedience". The only one video posted by Airat Bashirov is a music clip of hip-hop performers Kanye West and Jay-Z "No Church in The Wild".Need of arrest also was substantiated by the fact that Dmitry planned to visit Italy on 12 April. At that time Italy hosted International Esperanto Youth Festival, which Dmitry planned to visit beforehand with his wife. 

 

Why is he innocent?

Dmitry Bogatov didn't post messages in posting which he is accused of. He ran a Tor exit relay, which is not illegal in Russia, and he's not charged with that. Dmitry Bogatov was a operator of Tor exit relay. Tor is a special software which routes Internet traffic over random circuits builded from servers located around the world. Exit relays are used as last servers in circuit, that's why their adresses appears in logs. Dmitry's relay was online last time at 5 April 2017.Airat Bashirov also used Tor network for posting messages for posting which Dmitry is accused.After Dmitry's arrest, Airat Bashirov continue to post messages. News outlets "Open Russia" and "Mediazona" even got a chance to speak with him. In a comment to the Mediazona he confirmed that he used Tor.At the time when Bashirov's messages were posted Dmitry was not at home. He went to a fitness club with his wife, after which he visited a grocery store. That's confirmed by CCTV footage.Now Dmitry is under house arrest, he has no right to use Internet and telephone. He risks 19 years of prison. We continue the struggle and need your help to release Dmitry! 

https://freebogatov.org/en/