Vladimir Bukovsky

Dissident

VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY, who has died at 76, was a prominent Soviet-era dissident who became internationally known for exposing Soviet abuses of psychiatry. He spent a total of 12 years in Soviet prisons or psychiatric hospitals over his fierce criticism of the Communist government, becoming a symbol of Soviet persecution of dissent.

In 1961, he was expelled from Moscow State University for writing a thesis critical of the Komsomol, the Soviet Union’s communist youth organisation.

Mr Bukovsky was first arrested in 1963 for possession of books banned in the Soviet Union. He was declared mentally ill and sent for treatment to a psychiatric hospital where he spent almost two years – the first of several stints in Soviet psychiatric institutions. He was arrested again and handed a prison term in 1967 over a street protest.

In 1971, Mr Bukovsky smuggled out materials documenting the Soviet use of psychiatry for punishing dissenters.

Their publication drew international outrage, and he was quickly arrested.

The following year, he was sentenced to seven years in prison and a labour camp, to be followed by another five years of internal exile. His fate attracted global attention and in December 1976 the Soviet authorities agreed to trade him for the imprisoned Chilean Communist Party leader, Luis Corvalan.

His book of memoirs, To Build a Castle, has been widely published.

After the 1991 Soviet collapse, he authored Judgment in Moscow, a book that called for a trial of Soviet Communist Party and KGB officials similar to that of Nazi leaders’ trials in Nuremberg.

Mr Bukovsky maintained regular contacts with Russia’s opposition leaders and frequently visited his homeland after the Soviet collapse.

He became a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin’s rule and aspired to run for president in Russia’s 2008 election, but polling officials rejected his bid. In 2015, British prosecutors opened a case against Mr Bukovsky over indecent images of children allegedly found on his computer. He rejected the accusations and sued prosecutors for libel.

His trial was repeatedly adjourned and in 2018 a judge ruled that Mr Bukovsky’s health was too poor for him to give evidence.