MOSCOW -- A court of appeals in Moscow has intervened to ease the terms of the three-year prison term activist Yegor Lesnykh received during a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Moscow last year.
The Court of Appeals No.2 on November 9 ruled that Lesnykh will serve the remaining part of his sentence in a colony settlement instead of a prison. A colony settlement is a penitentiary in which convicts live close to a facility where they work.
Lesnykh, who is currently serving his prison term in the Correctional Colony No. 12 in the Volgograd region, was arrested along with several other activists and charged with assaulting police during rallies in July and August that year.
At the rallies, demonstrators in the Russian capital demanded opposition and independent candidates be put on the ballot for the Moscow City Duma election that was held in September.
The barring of the would-be candidates sparked a wave of protests in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, some of which were violently suppressed by police who detained thousands, sparking international condemnation.
Lesnykh was one of several activists punished with stiff prison sentences following the protests in what has been dubbed the "Moscow Case."
The activists' sentences sparked a public outcry in Russia because of their severity.
The Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center recognized Lesnykh as a political prisoner.
