A few days ago mathematicians around the world joined in a show of solidarity with one of their young members, 28-year-old Azat Miftakhov. He has been detained in Russia for two and a half years and is now facing a six-year prison sentence.
A total of about 1660 people watched the live broadcast of the event, Azat Miftakhov Day. Organized by the Miftakhov Committee, an international group of ten mathematicians, the event combined three math lectures with information on Miftakhov’s case. “This is one of our colleagues, a member of our community with whom we have shared work and math dreams,” said Cédric Villani in his opening address. Villani, who received the Fields Medal in 2010, the highest honor in mathematics, is now a member of the French National Assembly. Focusing on Miftakhov could help the 100,000 or so political prisoners around the world, he said. “Mathematicians and scientists must always stand up against absurdity and injustice.”
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Born in 1993 in the Russian republic of Tatarstan, Miftakhov showed early talent in mathematics and studied at the Moscow State University, one of the most important centers for mathematics in Russia. As a student he was involved in anarchist movements. By 2018 he had done a brilliant job in probability theory and stochastic processes and was well on his way to earning his PhD when he was suddenly arrested in February 2019 on suspicion of making explosives.
Three days later, the police released Miftakhov for lack of evidence – only to arrest him again the same day, this time on charges of breaking a window in a building belonging to the United Russia party. The window had been smashed more than a year earlier. Two witnesses, whose identities were kept secret, testified. One of the witnesses died in January 2020 and could therefore no longer be cross-examined.
“Doesn’t that sound like a joke?” Said Villani about the case against Miftakhov. But it’s not a joke. In January Miftakhov was sentenced to six years imprisonment in a penal colony for “hooliganism” out of political hatred. The whole time the researcher protested his innocence. He said he was beaten and tortured, and human rights officials have confirmed evidence on his body.
After Alexej Navalny, Miftakhov is probably the most famous political prisoner in Russia. Two online petitions demand his release: one in Russia has 86,000 signatures, the other 3,200 signatures from mathematicians from 15 countries. In January, 50 members of the Russian Academy of Sciences signed a letter calling for Miftakhov’s release. Mathematical societies in Brazil, England, France, Italy and the US have issued statements protesting his detention, as have human rights organizations.
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One of the Russian mathematicians who advocate Miftakhov is Anatoly Vershik, a professor at the St. Petersburg branch of the Steklov Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Born in 1933, Vershik lived much of his life under the Soviet system. It is evident that the court had no evidence of Miftakhov’s illegal activities, Vershik said. Russia “is returning to a Soviet, Stalinist system and drifting further and further away from a civilized norm”.
Russia has an outstanding mathematical history. The field flourished in the years of the Soviet Union when mathematics provided a spiritual haven for many brilliant minds. The mathematical tradition was severely weakened when many of the best mathematicians left the country after the fall of the USSR. In recognition of the revival of Russian mathematics in recent decades, the International Mathematical Union (IMU) plans to hold its biennial congress in St. Petersburg in 2022. The congress is the most important international event in mathematics and includes the awarding of the Fields Medals.
In January, 47 mathematicians, including the ten members of the Miftakhov Committee, signed a letter to the organizers of the congress. “Attending Congress while our colleague Azat Miftakhov is arbitrarily detained poses a serious dilemma for us and for the entire math community,” they wrote.
While in detention, Miftakhov was able to do math work, partly through correspondence with Russian mathematician Alexander Bufetov from the Institut de Mathématiques in Marseille and the Steklow Institute in Moscow. But shortly before Miftakhov Day, the mathematicians received the grim news that the Moscow City Court had rejected Miftakhov’s last appeal. He is to be transferred to a penal colony in the next few days. “Before the terrible six-year verdict, I was more hopeful,” says Bufetov. But he and his colleagues don’t want to give up.
“We won’t let up until Azat is free,” says Ahmed Abbes, a member of the Miftakhov committee and researcher at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques outside Paris. “Our community’s long tradition of defending human rights has shown that persistence pays off.”