The fault is guilty

So, you came to the demonstration of May 1, “Peace, Labor, May”, and as a result you ended up in the Department of Internal Affairs. Why were you detained?

Yuri : We ourselves break our heads over this, why we were detained. There was an agreed event, there was an announcement that a march dedicated to social issues was held. We see a social problem in an unfair attitude towards animals, we consider veganism as our moral minimum in relation to animals, so as not to kill, not exploit, do not keep them in slavery, do not make food, clothes, entertainment and everything else.

And in the house you can keep dogs, say, if you find a puppy?

Vladimir : If this is your act of altruism, that you decide to help the animal, picked up from the street either from the shelter, then this is normal - then you help the animal, and there is nothing wrong with that. But if you buy an animal from breeders for money, then you sponsor the trading of slaves, it turns out. This is bad.

Yuri : I had a poster in my hands “Peace, Labor, May, Veganism”. The promotion is agreed, there were these frames, the police. Since this was organized by the Communist Party, there the warriors stood from the Communist Party. We went all with our posters through these frames, and the police looked our slogans, checked - everything is fine. There was one person who looked at the poster, they did not like him with something, and he was not missed, there was control there in this regard.

The one that was not missed, he was from the vegan column?

Yuri : No.

Sofya : There were 150-200 people.

Daria : We had a banner: "Veganism is the only way to stop violence against animals."

It was written right on the banner?

Yes.

Ghost of the rainbow flag

Vladimir Zhuravlev (the only one of the interlocutors who named their last name) : the procession itself was about such a configuration. At first, the Communist Party was going on, then - all sorts of organizations friendly to it, then - friendly non -systemic leftist organizations. And the penultimate was the column united from the “Left Bloc”, the “revolutionary working party” and civilian resistance. And the vegan column went immediately after, that is, concluding in the whole procession. After that, only police officers and cleaners went. Actually, the vegans were at the end.

And what happened?

Yuri : According to the police, supposedly someone either turned some kind of LGBT symbolic, or she suddenly appeared there. Allegedly, they saw a rainbow flag.

Is the LGBT community prohibited from us?

Zhuravlev : Yes, we are not forbidden. But when we were detained, even to me, - and I was originally in the Left Block column - in short, they wrote to everyone that we held and showed posters with the propaganda of vegetarianism and non -traditional sex orientation. For which we were charged that we violated the regulations, and gave 20.2, clause 5 of the Code of Administrative Offenses - violation of the rules of the rally.

Due to the fact that they thought that representatives of LGBT are coming with you?

Zhuravlev : That we ourselves are LGBT.

Despite the fact that LGBT organizations are not prohibited.

Daria : Propaganda is prohibited among minors.

Were there minors in the column?

Daria : There were teenagers.

Can't they see a rainbow flag?

Sophia : I don't know.

Vladimir : Moreover, in the protocol they wrote “Vegeta-Rianism”, not “veganism”. And these are fundamentally different things: vegetarianism is a diet, and veganism is a movement.

Detention

Yuri : Moreover, they arrested not the entire vegan column, which would be logical to do, but only 19 people, and the rest simply took away and left posters in a heap and expelled outside the event.

Sophia : Yes, that is, we seized our personal property, all our posters were seized. And law enforcement officers - no one provided us with the documents - did not say the reason for the detention. I walked ahead of the column, there was an orator, that is, I spoke slogans, people repeated the crowd, and I did not even notice how they began to slowly pull people out of the column - they pulled out one person, did it very quietly and imperceptibly.

Who pulled out: guys in uniform or someone in dark costumes?

Vladimir : In uniform, of course, these were soldiers. They wrote the “second special regiment”.

Sophia : Then they stopped the whole column. We ask: what's the matter? They don’t answer us, they say: let's posters. We say: Okay, we give you posters. That is, we are doing what they say, but in the end they continue to delay, up to the point that ... they say, there, we delay the one, with pink hair, delay this, with a poster. We had very peaceful slogans - there was no aggression or hatred there. For example: "Good mood, animals - liberation."

Were there anti -government slogans?

Yuri : No. We have everything strictly against violence, against animal slavery, against their exploitation.

Daria : We did not even say a single word about the state, presidency in general. That is, there were no such words.

So, they began to detain you, and?

Sophia : Yes, they began to detain us. At first, 18 people were detained, then he ( shows at Zhuravlev. - NT) came to the rescue, began to tell us what to do, how to protect his comrades.

Zhuravlev : I am with my friend, we went to the column “Left Bloc”. And people in the column began to say: where did the vegans go? A rumor flashed: oh, and someone is delayed there. I look around, look, and the back where the vegans walked, nobody, only a line from the police and cleaning equipment. I thought: what a garbage, you need to help the guys. I had only a black flag with the Red Star “Left Bloc” from symbols. My friend and I went to see: there is a car plane, a lot of police, and a bunch of banners lies. I go to the nearest policeman, try to find out, he tells me: "Young man, go beyond the event, now there will be cleaning equipment." I am: Okay. I go beyond the limits of the event, that is, to the sidewalk, there he was fenced by a fence, and immediately began to call the OVD-Info to report the fact of the detention so that some kind of hype would rise. I make a call, I say: "The column of vegans was detained at the Pervomaisky procession." They ask me at the OVD-Info: where they will take them? I ask the guys - no one knows. I ask the nearest policeman: where will the detainees take it? A policeman to me: "What are you, a fag or what?" He twists his hands and leads to the car carrier so that my phone almost crashes, throws it in a car zakak, putting me two bruises, and says: “You think at all, for which you are playing.” That's how I was detained on May 1. And in the protocol they wrote to me that I demonstrated posters in defense of vegetarianism and non -traditional sexual orientation.

Vladimir : We walked in a column along the route for about an hour and a half approximately. Then the police officers blocked the way. I was among those who carry the banner “Veganism is the only way to stop violence against animals”, ahead, on the left side. We were stopped by police officers and said that everything is standing, we are waiting. And then banners, posters began to take from us. And one employee asked me to turn this banner, I listened to him, turned. And then he, too, pushing me into a car zak, asked to boot, in general, to sit down. Prior to this, one guy from our bloc was directly twisted by two police officers and also took it to a car carrier, so hard.

Yuri : First they were taken to the Nizhny Novgorod police department, then, not calling the reasons, they transported to the Basmann ATS.

Sophia : They did not let lawyers. After our comrades were detained, we went to the police department, stood near him, waited, counted the time, because according to the law we should let go in three hours. But we kept all for more than three hours, and we observed the situation as a lawyer was not allowed.

Zhuravlev : My lawyer Anton Kamaltynov. As a result, he was able to go through only when three hours of detention were already expired when all the protocols of the case were drawn up in his absence, although I repeatedly said that I had such a specific lawyer. And the police told me that lawyers are in criminal cases or in court, and here we will figure it out without a lawyer. The lawyer told me while he was standing on the passage, when he was not allowed, he talked with the guard, and the guard said: “I would have shot everyone like you.” Here is literally his quote. For each of us, one police officer was allocated, who personally made a protocol on detention, delivery and all other documents. At first, they just collected passports from everyone, then they selected mobile phones, this was not done voluntarily. That is, for example, I was pulled out of my bag, because I refused to give it to. Then we were divided into several offices, police officers issued protocols, recorded testimonies, if any, our phone numbers, contact details. There was also lawyer Maxim Pashkov from Open Russia.

Yuri : In Avtosak, we were first told that we will be taken only for a preventive conversation and immediately let us go. We were deceived in this regard. When they had already taken away, it turned out that all the protocols were drawn up.

Zhuravlev : At first I tried not to sign the protocol, but they told me that now they would simply call two witnesses, they will confirm that you refuse to make signatures, or we will even put you for two days. A police officer who was sitting there in a room, neighboring ours, simply showed a breakdown of paper and said: that’s all, that’s all your report. Well, after that I thought that I had to try to stretch out time. And, accordingly, began to slowly sign something there. In the end, he barely waited for his lawyer who came to me. And in the protocol he managed to write down that everything was drawn up in his absence. And I hope the court will perceive this.

Do you think why you were detained?

Sophia : Maybe they considered that we have too aggressive zoo protection methods?

Zhuravlev : No, I think that someone somewhere pulled out something about LGBT, and the police-they already feel such things with the spinal cord-and they began to grab everyone in a row.

PS Lawyer Anton Kamaltynov, in a commentary for NT, said that for this time he could not understand what the guys were detained and why his client, who was carried by the black-red flag, and not at all rainbow, is charged with article 20.2 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation-a violation of the regulations of the event. Neither the court nor even the preparation for the court at the time of signing the number was in the seal.

Lawyer Maxim Pashkov (Open Russia), who protects Veganov, believes that they were detained because they are not like others. "I asked the operative in the police department:" For what? " “And who knows,” the opera answered. So they wrote in the protocols: "For violation of the rally regulations." Although the procession on May 1 was stated-for social, economic problems, and the protection of wildlife is completely falling under this. This is a reaction on March 26 - these are the vegans and fell into the area of ​​scattering of fragments. ”

Photo: Activist group Vegan Action/vk.com