In a fever-dream phase of the pandemic, commercial real estate broker Mike Marinovich used electrical tape to draw out three pickleball courts on the sprawling second floor of his vacant downtown Minneapolis office building. The space at 1200 Washington Av. S. had just been vacated by a supercomputing center, and Marinovich was having no luck finding a new tenant as COVID still raged. He'd get .
human rights activists such as marinovich who was held in a similar place. i was with one other prisoner. reporter: in the 1970s he and other activists dared to document and publish soviets humanitarian violations in ukraine. similar to what putin is trying to prevent news and human rights organizations from doing today. we were arrested and punished with maximum terms, as most dangerous state criminals. this is just because you detailed human rights abuses and wrote about it? that was your crime? yes. yes. it was the only crime of mine and, of course, the soviet union questioned everything we wrote. it denied any violations and we were treated as liars. and for that punished. reporter: seven years of hard
reporter: tiny cement cells and tools of deliberate discomfort, even torture by the soviets used against critics and human rights activists such as marinovich who was held in a similar place. i was with one other prisoner. reporter: in the 1970s he and other activists dared to document and publish soviets humanitarian violations in ukraine. similar to what putin is trying to prevent news and human rights organizations from doing today. we were arrested and punished with maximum terms, as most dangerous state criminals. this is just because you detailed human rights abuses and wrote about it? that was your crime? yes. yes. it was the only crime of mine and, of course, the soviet union questioned everything we wrote. it denied any violations and we were treated as liars.