The founder of the Kazakh public association “Point of No Return” Evgenia Baltatarova reported that 29-year-old Russian woman Natalya Narskaya has been in pre-trial detention center-18 in Almaty for two months.
Baltasarova told “Important Stories” that the girl is in custody there was a nervous breakdown. Other prisoners told the human rights activist that Narskaya “has not stopped screaming for two months” and also “takes off her clothes and smears excrement on the walls of her cell.”
“She is locked in a punishment cell, and her screams are heard by the entire pre-trial detention center,” said Baltatarova’s interlocutors.
In Russia, a criminal case has been opened against Narskaya, a vocal teacher, for public calls for extremism in on the Internet (Part 2 of Article 280 of the Criminal Code), “Important Stories” claims, without indicating the source of information; she faces extradition to her homeland.
Narskaya moved to Kazakhstan in the spring of 2022 from the city of Lyubertsy near Moscow. One of the girl’s relatives told Important Stories that after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Narskaya wrote a letter to the city administration in which she condemned the war — after which local deputies wrote a statement against her to the police.
“The police came to her, she didn’t let them home and talked through the door. And two days later she quickly left for Kazakhstan. Where she could, because she didn’t have a passport,” explained Narskaya’s relative.
In Kazakhstan, a vocal teacher gave an interview to the “Eyewitnesses” project, created by the former editors of the Tomsk TV channel “TV2”. “I have the blood of Ukrainians on my hands. Now. Partially. For «Russian» I’m not ready to break my ass and I won’t break it,” said Narskaya.
According to human rights activists cited by “Important Stories,” in July 2023, police came to Narskaya’s place of residence in Almaty. She was not at home, but later the girl herself came to the police station, where she was first detained for two days and then sent to a detention center.
According to Narskaya’s relative, in 2011 the girl was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In the same year, she changed her last name from Tolmacheva to Narskaya: “She often ended up in mental hospitals and for some reason thought that with a new passport she would no longer be registered. But even with a new surname, she went there once again, and with very serious attacks. She didn’t recognize anyone [from her family],” the publication’s interlocutor said.
Evgenia Baltatarova added that Narskaya now “refuses to make contact with both lawyers and the management of the pre-trial detention center” and does not sign a power of attorney to provide her with legal protection.
According to the human rights activist, in the pre-trial detention center the girl had a psychiatric commission, which did not come to any decision.
“When I wrote the first post on Facebook, the management of the pre-trial detention center was very alarmed and contacted human rights activists. They said that they do not touch it, but, on the contrary, blow away the dust particles. That they don’t need her because she’s a foreign citizen. But since none of us personally saw Natalya, can we rely on the words of the jailers?” says Baltatarova.