Woman from Dagestan, accused of sponsoring terrorists, goes on hunger strike in colony

Saida Khalikova, convicted for sponsoring militants, was on a hunger strike for six days in her colony in the Volgograd Region. She complains about the ban to pray at night, said a member of the Public Oversight Commission (POC), who visited her.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in December 2015, the court sentenced Khalikova to 5.5 years in prison for sponsoring the "Islamic State" (IS, earlier ISIL, a terrorist organization banned in Russia by the court). In 2017, she complained about the absence of medical care, and her mother – that her daughter was serving her sentence too far from Dagestan.

The press service of the Department for the Volgograd Region of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia (known as FSIN) said that Khalikova "rudely behaves with the administration of the institution and fails to fulfil the rules" – for example, she refuses to wear the prison clothes as she wants "to wear Muslim clothes."

Khalikova's mother stated that her daughter was placed into the dungeon (punishment cell, also known as ShIZO) for her letter to the Ukrainian consul with a request to emigrate to Ukraine after her release.

Alexander Efimov, a member of the local POC, has explained that Khalikova was unhappy with the seizure of a Koran copy from her. She also prays at night; and the colony staff fixes it as a violation.