Dina Kaminskaya

Dina Isaakovna Kaminskaya (Russian: Ди́на Иса́аковна Ками́нская, 13 January 1919, Yekaterinoslav – 7 July 2006, Falls Church, Virginia) was a lawyer and human rights activist in the Soviet Union who was forced to emigrate in 1977 to avoid arrest.

The writer Yuli Daniel engaged Kaminskaya as his lawyer when, in December 1965, he was prosecuted with Andrei Sinyavsky, but the state refused to allow her to speak up in court on his behalf.

She also defended Yuri Galanskov (who would die in a Soviet labour camp), Anatoly Marchenko (who would also die in camp), Larisa Bogoraz and Pavel Litvinov, and the Crimean Tatar activist Mustafa Jemilev.

In 1977, after being stripped of her license to practice as a lawyer, she was barred from defending Anatoly Shcharansky.

[1] Kaminskaya's book Final Judgment: my life as a Soviet defense attorney translated by Michael Glenny was published in English in 1982.