Prix International des droits de
l'homme Ludovic-Trarieux 2025
Premio Internacional de Derechos Humanos Ludovic Trarieux 2025
Internationalen Ludovic-Trarieux-Menschenrechtspreis
2025
Pr mio
Internacional de Direitos Humanos
Ludovic Trarieux 2025
Premio Internazionale
per i Diritti Umani Ludovic Trarieux 2025
Ludovic
Trarieux Internationale Mensenrechtenprijs
2025
"The
International tribute from Lawyers to a Lawyer"
Dmitry TALANTOV
RUSSIA
The 30th Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize 2025 was awarded on Friday, March 21, 2025, at the Berlin Rechtsanwaltskammer, in the first round of voting, to Russian lawyer Dmitry Talantov, former President of the Bar Association of the Udmurt Republic.
The jury*(see below) was composed of 25 European lawyers from the bars of Bordeaux, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, and Geneva, as well as the International Union of Lawyers (UIA), the Unione forense per la tutela dei diritti dell'uomo (Rome), the Federation of Bars of Europe (FBE), and the Institute for Human Rights of European Lawyers (IDHAE).
Dmitriy Talantov, a 64-year-old lawyer (born December 29th, 1960, in Izhevsk, is a human rights lawyer and president of the Bar Association of Udmurtia (some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains) and a defence lawyer in politically sensitive cases. He started his career back in the 80s, then worked as a judge for several years, but soon returned to the bar, to which he gave almost 40 years of his life, and in 1996 became president of the Udmurt Bar Association. Dmitry Talantov who had been representing journalist and political prisoner was the acting lawyer for Ivan Safronov, a prominent investigative journalist and advisor to the Head of RosCosmos, on trial for a politically motivated high-treason charge.
Dmitry Talantov started acting as Ivan Safronov's attorney in August 2021, after Safronov's previous attorney, Ivan Pavlov, faced threats of disbarment because of his legal work.
During Safronov’s defence, Talantov had received threats from the security services’ investigators that he would be punished for his defence of the journalist.
He was detained on June 28th, 2022, because two months prior he reposted a publication with a photo of an elderly man on Red Square with a poster: “Peace to Ukraine. To Russia — sanity, horror, shame, repentance. Putin — to hell.” He accompanied the repost with the words: “What do you expect, after the photos and videos from Kharkiv, Mariupol, Irpen, Bucha???? This is not fascism — this is extreme Nazi practices! If after this the majority of my compatriots will support the murderer Putin and his gang — I personally refuse to recognize them as people. People have the quality of compassion. These people are just stupid and evil scum.”
He was charged under a new repressive law, namely Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code(“Public dissemination of knowingly false information about use of the Russian Armed Forces abroad and execution by the Russian government bodies of their powers, committed with motives of enmity or hatred”), which was introduced into the Criminal Code on 4 March 2022 and further amended on 25 March 2022. In September 2022, an additional charge for “inciting hatred” against the Russian authorities using his official position was added to Talantov’s docket.
Following his arrest, more than five hundred representatives of the legal community in Russia signed a letter in defense of Dmitry Talantov. The International Association of Russian Lawyers and the International Bar Association made a public demand for his release. Talantov described harsh conditions in detention, including spending two years in solitary confinement in what he called a "Medieval cell" with only a toilet hole and a tap. For his colleagues, the justification for Talantov’s arrest was literally his profession : they stated that Russian Federal Security Services were targeting the human rights lawyer exclusively for acting as a defence attorney of Ivan Safronov. On September 5, 2022, Ivan Safronov, deprived of a lawyer, was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison for high treason.
The Russian Federal Bar Association, which has the remit to protect the professional rights of lawyers, has taken no significant action to protect Talantov’s rights. The organisation’s position has been to remain ‘neutral’ on violations of the rule of law, human rights and access to justice.
Talantov, who is a past member of the Council of the Russian Federal Bar Association (2009–2011), has spoken out against this policy of ‘neutrality’ and is therefore unlikely to receive any assistance from the Federal Chamber in his own case.After he has spent two-and-a-half years in pre-trial detention,
Dmitry Talentov went on trial on 18 November 2024, before judge Denis Melelyagin in the Zavylovsk district court in Udmurtia. The state prosecutor asked for 12 years in prison.
During his emotional court closing statement, Talantov expressed doubts about surviving his prison sentence but stood by his criticism of the war : “In Russia, you don’t live that long, especially in prison and especially with my health…. I am 64, and it is hard for me to imagine coming out of prison alive," he said in a recording published by the rights group Perviy Otdel. I am waiting for words of peace. They do not come" he said. Addressing his wife, he added: "Olga, forgive me. I love you. The profession of criminal defense, to which I have devoted my entire conscious life, has trained me to think that a punishment requires a crime. Or at least a mistaken idea that the person has committed a crime. It is utterly impossible for me to imagine that someone might have been in thrall to such a mistaken idea with respect to me.This seems to me completely incredible, inasmuch as I am accused of hatred. Good and evil, hate and suffering—these categories are too different to simply up and confuse them. That doesn’t happen.
You know, I am sure that what I feel is not hate. It’s not hate. Your Honor, Judge Metelyagin, no one can go into solitary confinement, stay there for two and a half years and remain the same. Something in me has definitely changed. I think I have lost a great many unnecessary things. Perhaps – probably – I am now a step or half a step closer to that forgiveness that the pastor in the film was talking about.
It’s imperative to move on. I think it was Goethe who said: ‘He who knows “why” will endure almost any “how”’ [a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche – First Department]. I know why. The girl in the picture is smiling. Her smile remains a source of strength and love for me.Now for the last thing, which is perhaps the most important. In their final words at their trial, defendants often ask for forgiveness. And I also want to ask forgiveness.
Driven by some form of compassion, some pressing need, a person undertakes a certain act. Sometimes it is a very human act, but the price for this act has to be paid by someone else. By someone who loves that person. That is why I address my final words in this courtroom to my wife.Olga, forgive me. I love you.If that’s too emotional, I’ll say this: Olga, if you ever are put in prison for 12 years for anything, I shall be waiting for you. Don’t lose heart. »
He was sentenced to 7 years in prison, after finding him guilty of spreading “false information” about the Russian army and “inciting hatred” In prison, he wrote: “Light doesn’t need a reason, it just shines. Evil has no chance, it is empty and powerless. Yes, the wind blew out the candle. But we’ll light it again!”
Dmitry Talantov is one of dozens of Russians arrested under a law adopted just over a week after the invasion that essentially bans any public expression about the war that deviates from the official narrative.
He has rejected the charges against him, and OVD-Info quoted him as saying in a letter from detention: “"I once looked at a photo of a maimed Ukrainian woman and decided that I can’t stay silent anymore. But I remained a lawyer. I published my opinion in a way that doesn’t violate the formalistic law. And you know what? It is not my problem that a normal act is perceived by someone as a crime."
* MEMBERS OF THE
JURY 2025 ARE THE FOLLOWING
Pr sident : B
tonnier Bertrand Favreau, Pr sident IDHBB, (Article 4-4) Bertrand
Favreau;
Dominique
ATTIAS, ancienne vice-b tonni re du barreau de Paris, ancienne pr sidente de la
F d ration des Barreaux d Europe (FBE)
Francis
TEITGEN, ancien b tonnier du barreau de Paris pr sident de l institut en
formation des droits de l'homme du barreau de Paris (IFDHBP).
Isabelle
HUET, tr sori re de l Institut des droits de l homme du barreau de Paris
(IFDHBP).
Agaath
S. REIJNDERS-SLUIS, Secr taire g n ral de l Ordre des avocats du barreau d
Amsterdam
Adrie
VAN DE STREEK; Ordre des avocats du barreau d Amsterdam
Laurence
AZOUX-BACRIE, membre de l Institut en formation des droits de l homme du
barreau de Paris
Federico
CAPPELLETTI, vice-secr taire g n ral de IDHAE.
Bilin
ISPARTA, pr sident de la Commission droits de l homme de la Rechtsanwatskammer
Berlin
Ursula
GROOS, Commission droits de l homme de la Rechtsanwatskammer Berlin
Marc
DAL, Vice b tonnier du barreau de Bruxelles
Yves
OSCHINSKY, ancien b tonnier du barreau de Bruxelles pr sident de l'Institut des
droits de l homme du barreau de Bruxelles
Thierry
BONTINCK, Institut des droits de l homme tr sorier de l IDHAE
Giulia
JAEGER, secr taire g n ral de l IDHAE Luxembourg
S
bastien LANOUE, pr sident de la commission des droits humains de l ordre des
avocats de Luxembourg)
Artur
WIERZBICKI, pr sident de la commission des droits de l homme de la F d ration
des Barreaux d Europe (FBE)
Monique
STENGEL, secr taire g n ral de de la F d ration des Barreaux d Europe (FBE)
Bertrand
FAVREAU, pr sident de l IDHBB.
Pr
sident Bernd H USLER
Anton
LANA, pr sident de l Unione Forense per la Tutela dei Diritti Umani (UFTDU), pr
sident de l IDHAE
Francesco
ROSI, Tr sorier de l Unione Forense per la Tutela dei Diritti Umani (UFTDU)
Julie
GOFFIN, Directrice G n rale Adjointe de l UIA-IROL (UIA-Institute for the Rule
of Law)
Anna
MASIOTA, Directrice D fense de la D fense de l UIA-IROL (UIA - Institute for
the Rule of Law)
Daniel
KINZER, vice-b tonnier du barreau de Gen ve
Saskia
DITISHEIM, Commission des droits de l homme
Aleksander
KRYSZTOFOWICZ, vice doyen, Varsovie
Zbigniew
CICHON, Cracovie
