A member of an opposition group led by the former chess champion Garry Kasparov was released Monday from a psychiatric clinic after being held against her will for 46 days, the organization said.
Larisa Arap, 48, a member of Kasparov’s group in the northern port city of Murmansk, was forcibly hospitalized last month in what opposition activists said was revenge for exposing alleged abuse of children in a local psychiatric hospital.
Her case was taken up by human-rights defenders, who saw in it echoes of the Soviet-era practice of locking up dissidents in psychiatric hospitals.
Arap was released Monday from a hospital in Apatit, a city 180 miles from Murmansk, and was picked up by her husband, said Marina Litvinovich, a spokeswoman for Kasparov’s United Civil Front. Arap was moved to the hospital farther from her home in late July.
Arap’s release came after a commission, sent by human-rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, said it found no reason for her forced hospitalization.
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Items compiled from Tribune news services.
