Protest performances. April 2006

The review by Svetlana Kovaleva, brought to the attention of readers, is devoted to various kinds of protest actions that took place in April. The review was prepared by the Demos Center with the support of the OSI - Assistance Foundation.

Anti-militarist rallies and actions against conscription reform

On April 1 , actions timed to coincide with the start of the army draft were held in 30 regions of Russia. All of them, without exception, were "party". Among the organizers - SPS, NBP, the United Civil Front (UCF) Garry Kasparov, the Republican Party of Russia (RPR), the movement "Russian Radicals" and others. Almost all actions were sanctioned. As practice shows, the organizers almost never had problems with obtaining permission to conduct anti-militarist actions.

Only in Blagoveshchensk, Amur Region, prosecutor Vyacheslav Sizov demanded to cancel the permission already issued by the mayor's office to hold an action for the Amur Communist Youth Union of the NBP. He justified his demand by the fact that it is impossible to carry out activities in the border zone without the sanction of the FSB. As a result, the initiators of the rally canceled the planned performance, during which they planned to saw off the legs of the cardboard figure of Sergei Ivanov and hang his photo on the gallows, and limited themselves to distributing leaflets stating that "the question of the army will be resolved only by a social revolution that will destroy the exploitation of man by man and destroy institution of the army as a punitive body of the state". The protesters were not repressed for these actions.

One gets the impression that the problem of the army (along with social and labor rights) is among the topics to which the authorities are more "loyal". Even the noticeable radicalization of such actions after the tragic incident with Andrei Sychev did not change the situation. The authorities and the police often react nervously to purely political calls - such as demands for the resignation of high government officials - but in this case, putting up the slogan "Ivanov - resign!" had no effect on the protesters.

Only one arrest is known "on the fact of holding" an anti-militarist action, and this happened almost two months after the event itself. On April 17, a participant in an anti-militarist action in Samara, Danila Vanchaev, was detained by the FSB and taken to the prosecutor's office of the Oktyabrsky district of the city.

Employees were interested in the circumstances of the rally on February 23, when, during a happening on the ice of the Volga, Commander-in-Chief Putin and Defense Minister Ivanov sawed off Private Sychev's legs with a two-handed saw.

The detainee was interrogated on the fact of insulting the President of the Russian Federation and the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation.

The use of riot police

However, April did not pass without incident. At least two actions were dispersed with the involvement of riot police.

On April 15, riot police dispersed an unauthorized rally of deceived land investors on Red Square.

Shareholders who lost their land in 2003 as a result of fraud once again filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office with a demand to initiate a criminal case. However, since the previous appeals ended in nothing, they decided to hold a rally that would force the authorities to reckon with their legitimate interests. The police detained those who held the posters, as well as the organizers.

On April 20, more than 200 workers of the Yaroslavl plant "Kholodmash" blocked one of the largest city highways - Leningradsky Prospekt. The workers held the road for more than half an hour - until the arrival of the riot police.

The death of a protester in Dagestan

In Dagestan, the confrontation between OMON and demonstrators ended tragically. On April 25, near the district center - the village of Usukhchay in Dagestan, about 700 local residents held a rally demanding the resignation of the head of the district administration, Kerimkhan Abasov. At the same time, the protesters tried to block the road of republican significance leading to the Akhtynsky and Rutulsky districts of Dagestan.

When the road was unblocked, the OMON fighters who arrived at the scene used special equipment. In particular, in addition to rubber bullets and tear gas, firearms were also used after the protesters were pushed back to a section of the highway located near the village of Miskindzha, where the protesters were blocked on both sides of the highway and from a hill above it (law enforcement officials claim that the shooting was carried out in the air ). As a result, one person died and four were hospitalized with injuries.

After that, law enforcement agencies of Dagestan detained 74 people from among the protesters.

Dmitry Kozak, presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District, who arrived in Dagestan on April 27, said that now the goal is "to study and evaluate what happened so that this does not happen again." "It's time for everyone - both representatives of local authorities and ordinary citizens - to learn to live by the rules, by the laws," the plenipotentiary noted and stressed that the root cause of the tragic development of events is the lack of dialogue between the authorities and the people at all levels. An intermediate result of the conversation that took place was that law enforcement agencies were tasked with carefully understanding the causes that led to the conflict in the Dokuzparinsky district.

At the same time, the plenipotentiary also noted that "all those who initiated the riots will be punished according to the law. I want both the authorities and the residents to understand that one must live according to the rules and laws in force."

Hunger strikes for labor rights
In April, a whole series of hunger strikes ended in success for the protesters. The most famous was the hunger strike of the workers of the Yasnogorsk machine-building plant.

On April 5, the starving workers of Yasnogorsk Machine-Building Plant OJSC, who had been holding a rally since March 23 demanding payment of wage arrears, received an appeal for help from Russian and foreign media, as well as public organizations. By this time, two protesters had already been hospitalized.

News reports about the hunger strike regularly appear on news agencies' tapes. The health of the hungry is deteriorating every day, but on April 10 they declare that they will go to the end, up to the tragic denouement.

With no less regularity ( April 13 and 14 ) there are new lists of those who support the hungry

On April 26, there were already 23 people on hunger strike. Hospitalized - 13. At this point, three criminal cases have already been initiated on the fact of non-payment of wages to workers, but the protesters do not yet believe that this can give results. They still regularly appeal to the public and the media with a request for solidarity and pressure on local authorities.

The hunger strike was ended on April 27 after several criminal cases were opened and the investigation was placed under the control of the Prosecutor General's Office.

In addition, the media reported on the end of a series of hunger strikes that took place in April.

On April 6, former workers of the Krasnouralsk chemical plant stopped their hunger strike, demanding payment of salaries. At the same time, it was announced that the money would be paid monthly to those who did not participate in the hunger strike, starting from the oldest part of the debt.

On the same day in Pervouralsk (Sverdlovsk region), employees of the Sverdlovsk Motor Transport Association (SATO) ended the hunger strike, having achieved satisfaction of their demands. The administration of Pervouralsk invalidated the competition for the distribution of routes among urban hauliers.

On April 12, the hunger strike at the enterprises of JSC "Kurganenergo" was completed. All requirements of workers were satisfied by the employer. The leaders and activists of the trade union "Zaschita" ensured that the teams of workers in which they work at OJSC "Kurganenergoremont" were not divided into parts and separated into different enterprises.

On April 11, employees of the Krasnoyarsk Central Market, protesting against the sale of the municipal market to private ownership, achieved partial satisfaction of their demands and ended the hunger strike.

On April 20, a hunger strike of Chernobyl invalids began in Sestroretsk. A similar protest took place in the same apartment in February 2005. The requirements remained the same - that the calculation of compensation should not be based on a fixed amount, but on the coefficient of damage to health. After the hunger strike in 2005, indexation was increased by 1.38%. But Chernobyl victims say that this increase does not help much.

Preventive measures

In April, there were several reports of authorities blocking protests before they even started.

To arrest citizens who on April 24 in Omsk wanted to gather near the building of the regional government to express no confidence in the governor of the region, Operation Interception was carried out , during which 120 people were detained. The organizers were detained before the start of the action at the place of residence. The rest (in fact, everyone who went to the declared place of the rally) were detained later. They released the detainees on the same day, explaining in confidence that such was the order.

On April 26, in Tomsk, police detained 20 United Civil Front and NBP activists who were stationed along the highway along which the motorcade of Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel followed. Representatives of the United Civil Front did not have time to unfold slogans and posters.

in Ufa On April 27, a rally of the united opposition was held , at which demands were made for the resignation of the President of Bashkiria, Murtaza Rakhimov. True, the action itself actually failed due to the fact that a few hours before the start of the rally, FSB officers for Bashkiria conducted searches at the headquarters and apartments of the oppositionists and took almost all opposition leaders to the office for a talk.

Prohibitions and restrictions

On April 28, the administration of the Tomsk region banned rallies near the 1000 trifles store and on the square of the new fountain, where there are no buildings and historical monuments, after several rallies were held there on the theme "Society's responsibility for the present and future of the country."

The trade unions of Kamchatka planned to hold a rally in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on May 1 as part of the Day of United Protest Actions. The authorities gave permission for it to be held, but changed the date. May Day was moved to April 27th.