Eva Merkacheva, a member of the Human Rights Council chaired by the President of the Russian Federation, criticized the decision to place blogger Elena Blinovskaya in a pre-trial detention center after she violated house arrest conditions. In an interview with socialbites.ca, Merkacheva suggested that the court could consider alternative sentences and questioned whether detention was necessary in this case. According to the HRC member, Blinovskaya does not appear to pose a threat to society, and there are other means for the state to respond if punishment is deemed essential. Alternatives such as bail, or even a sentence that allows for continued freedom while a case proceeds, were proposed. Merkacheva argued that when a person fails to meet bail conditions, the money deposited should be redirected to support low-income people, and the amount of bail should not be limited by law. He asked why the bail system seemed to be collapsing in practice, noting that the risk to others should be a key consideration when setting any precautionary measure. This stance reflects a call for more measured use of preventive restrictions.
The HRC representative described arrests as sometimes serving as a generic response rather than a targeted measure aligned with social goals. He recalled recent incidents in which punitive actions appeared inconsistent with the broader aim of social justice. In one example, a heating outage in the Moscow region led to the detention of the head of a boiler room at a local facility, while in Bryansk the arrest affected a parent connected to a school incident. Such cases, Merkacheva indicated, show a drift toward treating preventive measures as a default option rather than as a carefully calibrated response. The discussion around Blinovskaya’s case, he added, should be seen in this light.
Merkacheva argued that the focus of the investigation and judicial process should be examined through the lens of restorative justice rather than punitive optics. If a person is accused of not paying a particular tax or debt, the question should be whether there is room to resolve the matter without depriving them of liberty. The broader concern is whether the system consistently resorts to detention without sufficient justification, potentially creating an atmosphere where preventive measures are applied too readily. In his view, such a pattern risks turning detention into a default reaction in unclear situations. He urged urgent reform to ensure that preventive measures are proportionate and socially justified.
On January 22, the Moscow Zamoskvoretsky Court decided that Elena Blinovskaya would remain in pre-trial detention for three months, extending custody until April 26. The decision followed a request from Russia’s Investigative Committee, which cited multiple breaches of house arrest, including hosting a private gathering where a witness in the case was present. Concurrently, new charges were brought against the blogger, with authorities seeking to pursue an article related to the illegal circulation of funds by a conspiratorial group.
Defense objections to transferring Blinovskaya to the pre-trial facility were reported in the context of these developments. The evolving legal proceedings highlight ongoing tensions between the desire to uphold public safety and the call for more measured, rights-respecting approaches to preventive detention in high-profile cases.