Libertarian activist Mikhail Svetov jailed for nine days

On Monday, April 26, Moscow’s Savelovsky District Court jailed libertarian activist Mikhail Svetov for nine days. The “Civil Society” movement chairman was found guilty on administrative charges of organizing an unauthorized rally (a violation of Russian Administrative Code article 20.2, section 2).

Svetov wrote on Twitter that he was charged over “a tweet with an alleged call [to protest], dated January 23.”

“[Found] guilty of organizing a public event. The statute of limitations has expired, there are discrepancies in the dates — nobody cares. ‘The violation was confirmed by detective Kondratyev’s report’.”

Earlier on Monday, Svetov was fined 30,000 rubles ($400) under the same administrative article, for allegedly inciting participation in the protest that took place on April 21.

• On the night of April 24, police officers in Moscow raided Mikhail Svetov’s home in connection with a felony investigation into sexual misconduct with a minor (this case dates back to 2019). After the search, Svetov was taken in for questioning and spent two days in temporary detention center — as he noted, this time in custody will not be counted towards his jail sentence.