For journalists
Press desk
A number you can quote with its date, wording you can paste, and a desk that answers. Write to press@thedetained.org.
The figure of the month
Taken on the first of every month and never revised, so this month's number can be compared with last month's. The next one is due on the first of next month.
As of 1 October 2026
As of 1 October 2026, The Detained documents 3,286 people imprisoned on political grounds in Russia, Belarus, Georgia and Central Asia, of whom 1,767 are recognised as political prisoners by a national human rights body and 1,519 are documented and assessed by The Detained.
Attribute as "according to The Detained" with the date. Per-country figures and the full breakdown by designation are on the dataset page.
Boilerplate
Paste as is, or cut. Both are accurate as of the date at the top of this page.
The Detained is an independent, non-partisan database of people imprisoned on political grounds in Russia, Belarus, Georgia and Central Asia. Each record is traced to the organisation that documented it and states who designated the person a political prisoner. The database is published in English at thedetained.org and released as open data under CC BY 4.0.
The Detained is an independent, non-partisan database of people imprisoned on political grounds in Russia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and neighbouring states. It brings the per-country lists kept by organisations such as Political Prisoners Support. Memorial, Viasna and OVD-Info into one English-language, cross-country record, and adds statute-level analysis and the international legal standards each case engages. Every record names the organisation that documented it and states whether the person was recognised by a national body or assessed by The Detained against the Guidelines on the Definition of Political Prisoner. The full dataset is released monthly as open data under CC BY 4.0, and the project accepts no funding from any government or political party.
What we can provide
- Case pages with sources, statute references, custody and a citation block, at a stable URL that will not change.
- Counts on request: by country, charge, statute, year of arrest, sentence length, or custody status. Same-day for simple cuts.
- Cross-country comparisons that no single-country list can give: how the same conduct is charged in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, for instance.
- The full dataset as CSV or JSON, CC BY 4.0, at /data.
- Comment on documented patterns. We do not comment on cases we have not documented, and we do not speculate about individuals.
- Anniversary and release tallies: numbers held at a date, so a story about a release can say how many remain.
- Corrections: if we got something wrong, tell us and we fix it publicly. The log is on the transparency page.
- Turnaround: we aim to answer within one working day, and faster on deadline if you say so in the subject line.
How to attribute
Call us "The Detained", with a link to thedetained.org. When you cite a case, credit the organisation that documented it too: it is named on the record and in the sources column of the dataset. Where a person is recognised as a political prisoner by Memorial or by the Belarusian joint statement, that designation is theirs and should be attributed to them. Where the record says "assessed by The Detained", the assessment is ours. The policy is explained at /data/designations.
Our counts are not a claim that every person has been independently confirmed by us. The record page and the dataset say, for each person, whether the record has been re-verified line by line. Please keep that distinction if you quote both numbers.
About the project
The Detained is independent and accepts no money from any government, political party or state-affiliated body. The definition we apply, the criteria, the editorial process and the funding policy are on the transparency page; the methodology, including which fields are model-assisted, is at /methodology; the team is on the about page.
Press desk: press@thedetained.org. Corrections: corrections@thedetained.org. Partnerships and list reconciliation: partners@thedetained.org.