After Russian Death, Inquiry Doors Open and Shut

By ELLEN BARRY
NYT

MOSCOW — It was more than a year ago when six members of an obscure oversight panel filed into Butyrskaya Prison to look into the death of a prisoner.

They were hardly an intimidating bunch: retired women in hats, mostly, scribbling their observations in notebooks, regarded by the prison staff as a minor irritant, like fleas.

In a country whose law enforcement structures wield enormous power, it is easy enough to ignore civilian watchdog groups. But this day was different. When the doctors were led in and told to take a seat, the panel’s leader, a veteran human rights activist named Valery V. Borshchev, felt something unfamiliar in the air.

“They lied to us, of course,” Mr. Borshchev later recalled. “But they were frightened. And the fact that they were frightened gave us hope that something would really change.”

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