The Pavlovo City Court of Nizhny Novgorod Region has ruled to take D. Andronov into custody saying that “the court has serious reasons to believe that D.A. Andronov, being set free, can dodge the summons of the investigation and the court, can go into hiding from these bodies and can negatively influence on the victim and the witnesses thereby impeding the  investigation and can commit a crime”. So the court has held the arguments the Pavlovo District Prosecutor’s Office, which insisted on taking Dmitry Andronov into custody. Experts of the NN Committee Against Torture believe that the arrest is unlawful and ungrounded and is caused by the desire of the prosecutor’s office to take revenge on the minor and his family for their application to human rights defenders.

Lawyers of the Committee reiterate that they in no way assess the facts connected with the crime he is charged with. This is undoubtedly the task of the investigation and the court. However, law enforcement officers exerted violence on Dmitry and the restraint imposed on him is the consequence of his complaints in this respect lodged with the NN Committee Against Torture and the Pavlovo District Prosecutor’s Office.

On 27 February 2007 Dmitry’s mother Marina Andronova informed the NN CAT that “in protest of the ungrounded and unlawful apprehension of her minor child and despair” she went on hunger-striking.

All our efforts to dissuade Ms. Andronova from this measure had been fruitless.

In the existing situation The NN Committee Against Torture is going to forward an urgent message to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of the Child. 

      We will appeal against the ruling of arrest of Mr. Andronov.