Azat Miftakhov, verdict : lettre signée par le président de la SMF
The international mathematical community is gravely concerned about the situation of Azat Miftakhov, the graduate student from Moscow State University who has been detained by Russian state authorities for nearly two years.
The defense of Azat Miftakhov announced that it will appeal the verdict. "Of course, we will appeal. We insisted on an acquittal," lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina told Tass.
We have been following his case since October 2020 and we have come to believe that the charges against him are a pure invention of the Russian authorities.
On January 4, 2021, we sent a letter concerning the case of Azat Miftakhov, signed by 47 mathematicians, to the members of the Executive Organizing Committee and Local Organizing Committee of the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) that will be held in Saint- Petersburg in 2022. We also alerted the International Mathematical Union.
A recent petition in support of Azat Miftakhov has been signed by more than 3000 mathematicians from more than 15 countries.
Professor Anatoly Vershik, the former president of the St. Petersburg Mathematical Society, a member of the European Academy of Sciences, a Humboldt Prize laureate, chief researcher of the St. Petersburg section of the Steklov Institute of Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Novaya Gazeta on January 10, 2021: "We mathematicians are meticulous people, we need proofs. Gradually, even the most conservative skeptics became aware of the absurdity of the situation around Azat Miftakhov."
We will continue to monitor Azat Miftakhov's case and provide our support until he is released and his rights are fully restored. We hold the Russian authorities directly responsible for the safety and physical and moral integrity of our colleague.
Ahmed Abbes, mathematician, Director of research at CNRS, Paris
Michel Broué, Professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Paris
Chandler Davis, Professor emeritus of mathematics, University of Toronto.
Fabien Durand, Président de la Société Mathématique de France, Professor of mathematics, Université de Picardie Jules Verne
Ivar Ekeland, FRSC, Professor emeritus of mathematics and former President, University of Paris-Dauphine
Dennis Gaitsgory, Professor of mathematics, Harvard University
Michael Harris, Professor of mathematics, Columbia University
Ilya Kapovich, Professor of mathematics, Hunter College of CUNY, Chair, Committee on the Human Rights of Mathematicians, American Mathematical Society
Raphael Rouquier, Professor of mathematics, University of California, Los Angeles
Masha Vlasenko, professor at the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences
