Journalist Svetlana Anokhina reports about law enforcers’ visit to her mother

The police came to a 95-year-old mother of journalist and human rights defender Svetlana Anokhina to take a saliva sample from her. The human rights defender has called the police actions intimidation of the elderly woman.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that on April 12, 2023, Svetlana Anokhina reported about a law enforcers’ visit to the house of her elderly mother. The law enforcers asked the Svetlana Anokhina’s mother about the human rights defender’s publication concerning the events in Ukraine. On August 14, 2023, the police conducted a search at home of the human rights defender in Dagestan.

Svetlana Anokhina noted on her page in Instagram* that she left Russia more than three years ago, ten days after the law enforcers’ assault of a shelter in Makhachkala.

“Now they visited my mother, but not for a search … They needed a sample of her saliva,” the journalist reported.

The human rights defender has pointed out that such a practice “has so far been extended to relatives of ‘militants’ and ‘terrorists’.” Svetlana Anokhina refers to the practice when the police allegedly identified missing people who were declared killed in attacks on law enforcers, using DNA samples of their relatives.

Svetlana Anokhina has noted it is difficult to understand how her mother will help the police if they are interested in the journalist’s publication on a social network about the events in Ukraine.

*On March 21, 2022, the Tverskoi Court of Moscow banned the activities in Russia of the Meta Company, owning the Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, in connection with extremist activities.