RAS scientists outraged by the detention of academician Yefim Khazanov

As the president of the academy, Alexander Sergeyev, said at a meeting of the General Meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, he would take the issue of the detention of Khazanov under his personal control.

“If you need to appeal to high authorities, law enforcement and so on, this will certainly be done. We will formalize this either by my letter or by the decision of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, when the situation becomes clearer", - Interfax quotes Sergeyev's statement.

Russian scientists expressed serious concern over the arrest of a prominent scientist, doctor of sciences, laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation, who was taken out by the police on the morning of April 21 directly from his office in Nizhny Novgorod. Presumably, the reason for the arrest of the academician was the reposts he made on the social network in support of the starving politician Alexey Navalny in the prison hospital.

“I also believe that the RAS Presidium needs to establish interaction with law enforcement agencies in order to avoid unjustified persecution of scientists. We all agree that Russian scientists, members of the academy are real patriots of their country, and putting them in jail is absolutely unacceptable”, - said Valery Rubakov, Academician, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics.

After the arrest of the academician, it became known that the police drew up a report on him under Part 2 of Art. 20.2 of the Administrative Code (organization or holding of a public event without filing a notification in the prescribed manner). Under this article, he faces a fine of 20 to 30 thousand rubles, compulsory work up to 50 hours, or administrative arrest for up to 10 days. Together with Khazanov, the police detained four more people, including human rights activist Stanislav Dmitrievsky.

Scientist Yefim Khazanov specializes in the creation of laser systems. Since 2008, he has been a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Department of Physical Sciences. In 2012, Khazanov was awarded the Prize of the Government of the Russian Federation for work on the creation of a petawatt laser complex, and in 2018 he was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation for the creation of fundamental foundations and instrumental solutions to the problems of recording gravitational waves.

Recently, against the background of a wave of criminal cases against Russian scientists, the outflow of scientific personnel from the country has increased fivefold.