Finnish child protective services seize Zavgorodnyaya's children again - rights activist
HELSINKI. Nov 16 (Interfax) - The Finnish child protective services have again seized the children from Russian citizen Anastasiya Zavgorodnyaya, who lives in Finland, human rights activist Johan Backman said.
"The police stormed her friend's apartment, where she was staying with her children. Nastya has been detained," Backman told Interfax.
"Anastasiya's children were returned to her before Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Finland, but were soon seized again," he said.
"Anastasiya may be put in a mental institution to silence her," he said.
Russian children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said on Twitter that he and the Russian consulate will try to determine the circumstances and grounds for the actions taken by the Finnish authorities."
"The ombudsman insists on Zavgorodnyaya's release. If Finland is a law-governed state, it has to guarantee freedom to choose residence and travel," he said on Twitter, saying that "a police storm of an apartment of a woman with many children is an inappropriate and excessive measure threatening children's lives and mental health."
"Anastasiya Zavgorodnyaya, who temporarily lived with her friend in Helsinki with her four children, has been detained again. The children have been seized," Astakhov said.
Zavgorodnyaya said the Finnish police have stormed the apartment where she was living with her children. No documents were produced, Astakhov said.
The Finnish child protective services seized Zavgorodnyaya's four children, including a five-day-old baby, over alleged violence in the family in early October after Zavgorodnyaya's 6-year-old daughter said in school that her father had spanked her. After the Russian embassy in Finland intervened in the situation, Zavgorodnyaya was allowed to stay in a facility with her newborn and then at home under the child protective services' supervision.