Azat Miftakhov

Mathematician, anarchist activist and political prisoner. Azat Miftakhov was born on March 22, 1993 in Nizhnekamsk, Republic of Tatarstan. In 2015, he started a doctorate at the Department of Theory of Functions and Functional Analysis at the Faculty of Mechanics, Moscow State University.

Miftakhov was arrested in February 2019 and tortured by the FSB. In January 2021, he was sentenced to 6 years in prison for "hooliganism", accused of allegedly breaking the window of an office of the ruling United Russia party. In September 2023, Miftakhov was arrested again upon his release from the penal colony, this time accused of advocating terrorism. According to the investigation, Miftakhov “deliberately held, in the presence of two detainees, a public justification of terrorism.” On March 28, 2024, he was sentenced by the Yekaterinburg military court to 4 years in prison, including 18 months in a high-security prison.

The international mathematical community mobilized to defend Azat Miftakhov from his first arrest. Many professional associations, including the national mathematical societies of France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Italy, and Spain, have issued public statements in support of Miftakhov. The Hadamard Doctoral School of Mathematics at Paris-Saclay University named Azat Miftakhov an honorary student and invited him to complete his doctorate in Paris once released. Harvard University's Scholars at Risk section awarded Azat Miftakhov a fellowship to continue his research.