"Get ready"

Petersburg opposition activist Yuri Melnichuk was deported from Finland to Russia

The Russian opposition activist Yuri Melnichuk , known not only to belonging to the RPR-Parnas party, but also the famous tattoo on his hand, left Russia on January 17, 2013 to get political asylum in the West, but he did not succeed: on May 25, the Finnish authorities deported him to Russia, putting on the Helsinki-Petersburg train.

This forced journey was preceded by many years of activity on the opposition side, performances on dozens of protests, detention and other troubles. The associates of Yuri Melnichuk have repeatedly heard his stories about surveillance and threats. That is why he decided to leave Russia and look for shelters in Europe.

When the Russian-Ukrainian conflict began, Yuri Melnichuk sharply criticized the policy of the Russian authorities, openly declared rejection of the annexation of Crimea and, in this regard, compared Russia to Nazi Germany. The repost of one of these messages last year was made by a resident of Arkhangelsk Anatoly Dembovsky, for which the Severodvinsky city court of Arkhangelsk sentenced him to 300 hours of compulsory work. Dembovsky was found guilty under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "The excitement of hatred and enmity on the grounds of race, nationality, origin, attitude to religion committed publicly." This also was one of the most important reasons that prompted Yuri Melnichuk to leave.

Law enforcement agencies were not indifferent to him

“He was subjected to massive“ raids ”by the police, and his relatives, too,” says Konstantin Ershov, co -chair of the St. Petersburg Solidarity Department. - During the rally of 2011-12 that we organized with him, they repeatedly detained us, arrested, he even received once 10 days, and despite the fact that he had a pre -infarction state, they continued to hold it, did not let him go anywhere. It is clear that law enforcement agencies were not indifferent to him as a bright protesting figure, arranged surveillance, several people constantly followed him. So at some point he decided that it would be better to continue the struggle in the countries of the European Union, but these countries reacted to him, so to speak, without understanding. The most amazing thing is that it was deported, although the judicial procedure on this subject has not yet been completed in Finland: the decision of the first court was appealed in the Supreme Court, but for some reason the police did not receive an instruction to suspend the deportation during the appeal. For the Finnish lawyer, this was also a surprise. Theoretically, it was possible to file a complaint on violation of the regulations to the European Court of Human Rights - they consider such complaints on the same day, but this coincided with holidays: in Strasbourg today a day off. It was as if specially guessed so that there was no way to stop the process of deportation through the Strasbourg court. Melnichuk is a citizen of Russia, but an ethnic Ukrainian, and when he found out that he was deported, he asked for help from Ukraine through Facebook, but it seemed to be too late.

It turned out that the Finnish authorities bought a ticket to Yuri Melnichuk only to Vyborg, and from there he, by bus, got to St. Petersburg. As a result, we managed to contact him on the phone quite late in the evening of May 25.

- Why did you decide to run in 2013?

I counted them, there are 20 of them

- The situation was slowly superimposed, and I organized all kinds of shares with Kostya Ershov in 2011-12 - you are applying, they give you a refusal, you still hold an action, get a warning about extremist activities. Unofficial springs informed me that the case has already been instituted on me, they are only waiting for the teams. The last straw was January 13, 2013, we wanted to organize a march against the “Law of the Plotsy”, but the march did not work, few people came, we made pickets, and surrounded me. I walked, distributed "agita", and a crowd was following me - I realized that they were following me. My friend came up and said: "I counted them, there are 20 of them." And so, they followed me, and the car with a wiretap drove - the "submarine" with the "periscope" for listening to any floor. Nothing is still on the street, and when I went down the subway, it was scary: I am alone, it is not clear what they would do to me. I really ran away, looked up, phoned Ershov, we sat, thought-probably we had to leave. In fact, it is very difficult to determine the degree of danger what they want - to scare you, squeeze out of the country or plant you. But they overlapped me tightly, and on January 14 I went to Moscow, and on the 17th-to Austria.

- Why failed to get asylum?

- There are nuances. I know German, and I wanted to stay in Austria, but there they told me: no, since you have a Finnish visa, then ask for refuge in Finland, and sent me there. And there everything is not easy too. In May 2013, I organized pickets about our political prisoners, "Prisoners of May 6" at the parliament, although they hinted that this was not necessary. And when I submitted the documents, they refused me. I had my applications for rallies, refusals for them, warnings that my activity may be considered extremist. And imagine, the Finns wrote to me in the motivation for refusing something like that they told you that it was impossible to hold stocks-why did you hold them. I explained to them that Russian laws against rallies contradict both the Russian constitution and all international conventions, but this did not bother them. They explained to me that if I leave for another city and stop doing protest activities, then everything will be fine with me. Then they filed an appeal, but then obviously the lawyer did something wrong-until the last he assured me that the deportation would be suspended before receiving an answer. I calmed down, but yesterday the police come to me early in the morning and says: "Get ready." There they have a bunch of tricks - they deport me, but they say: you can appeal it. It is meant that I can file a complaint at the consulate in St. Petersburg. In general, I realized that our oppositionists in Europe have no place.

- What are you going to do now?

- Just a few hours later I am going to leave for Ukraine, because I am an ethnic Ukrainian, albeit a Russian citizen.