Open fracture

As if by magic (which was a police baton), those who disagreed turned into outraged ones. In the near future they will again gather for a rally in the center of St. Petersburg. The police, without hiding sarcasm, say: let them rally, our country is democratic...

A new rally is expected in St. Petersburg on April 27. The organizers submitted an application to the city administration last Tuesday. However, the slogans on posters and banners will be different this time. Because they will take to the streets not just those who disagree (as was the case before), but those who are outraged by police violence and lawlessness.
This protest action was not initially included in the plans of the St. Petersburg opposition. The reason for it was given by the police themselves. It turns out that “in the wrong place” and “at the wrong time” you cannot freely move along the street, take photographs, buy gifts, go down the subway, be in a telephone booth and sometimes, sorry, even in a public toilet...

Hospitalized by riot police
The location for the next gathering of potential victims of police brutality has not yet been determined. The initiators offer officials three options: St. Isaac's Square (in front of the Legislative Assembly building), Malaya Konyushennaya Street (at the exit to Nevsky Prospekt) or Ligovsky Prospekt (in front of the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall).
But no matter where the organizers of the rally ultimately agree to meet, they will definitely not include several dozen participants from previous protests. Many of them simply will not have time to be discharged from medical hospitals by that time.
Yesterday in the ward of the Mariinsky Hospital, in response to a provocative question from a Novaya Gazeta journalist: “Will you go to another march?” – patient Alexander Kazantsev (52-year-old pensioner, group 2 disabled) did not answer immediately. He was silent for a minute, looked down at his chest, and checked to see if the capsule into which the blood was flowing was still there. During the dispersal of the march by riot police batons, the man's ribs were broken. One of the cracked bones pierced the lung... He raised his eyes and said quietly: “Well, if only the march is allowed. But this will probably not happen soon..."
Currently, four injured rally participants remain in serious condition in the surgical department of the Mariinskaya Hospital.
Famous St. Petersburg poet and pensioner Boris Lichtenfeld moves around the room on crutches. The elderly man explains that he was saving his son, who was being beaten by riot police, from the police, and he himself came under attack. Boris Elizarovich was kicked with boots. Broke my knee. Diagnosis: artery rupture.
Olga Tsepilova (senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences) also suffered for “excessive” humanism (pity for those who fell under the blows of batons). When Olga lifted the old woman from the asphalt and was indignant that she was already raising her hand to “God’s dandelions,” she was noticed by “guardians of order.”
– I have known Olga for many years (she is a sociologist, Ph.D., member of the federal leadership of the Yabloko party) as a surprisingly peaceful and calm person. And they broke her nose and caused a head injury (doctors stated a fracture of the upper facial bone and a concussion), says the famous Yabloko activist Mikhail Amosov.
“Here, every story is a song,” shares the “oppositionist”, ex-deputy of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly Sergei Gulyaev, who (albeit with a broken arm) at his insistence is being discharged from the hospital today.


Complaints Commission
On April 17, a Public Commission began operating in St. Petersburg to provide legal assistance to victims of the events on the March and a legal assessment of what happened. The founders of the commission, St. Petersburg human rights activists: Yuli Rybakov, Yuri Vdovin, Alexander Vinnikov and Sergei Khakhaev, stated their position in an official statement to the government and the city prosecutor’s office:
“The actions of the rally participants did not go beyond the law,” and “as a result of the actions of government officials, massive violations of human rights occurred... Full responsibility for mass beatings, illegal arrests, falsification of administrative detention records lies with the leadership of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate... We announce the collection of information from witnesses and victims by calling the public reception: 380-60-30, 710-65-19, 8-911-989-18-13.”
Human rights activists notified officials about future plans:
“The report on the results of the work we have done will be handed over to the Russian public and relevant international authorities for the inclusion of legal mechanisms of responsibility for violation of international agreements signed by Russia.”
According to the co-chairman of the human rights faction of the Yabloko party, Yuliy Rybakov, already on the first day of work, the public reception desk received at least two dozen appeals. But they just learned about the commission.
“This is further proof that there are a lot of accidental victims and innocent detainees,” says Rybakov. “Unprecedented things were happening before my eyes: a sick, lame woman and some old woman were hiding from batons in a telephone booth - riot police noticed and got them. Not far from the Vitebsk railway station, a man and a woman ran for their lives into a public toilet, and the police did not hesitate to follow them. They dragged me out of there...
“We observed an organized, planned and targeted attack by riot police,” believes Mikhail Amosov. “The authorities wanted blood.” Do not give in to Moscow, where over a hundred people were detained the day before. Therefore, when the march participants began to disperse and moved towards the metro, it was closed. People were not given an escape route, and in the area of ​​the Vitebsk station (between Pushkinskaya and Tekhnolozhka) they simply began to catch them, detain them, and beat them.
The rally itself (and in my opinion, it was not even a march, but a rally), says Amosov, was held in a civilized manner. Nobody wanted to disrupt anything. We simply criticized the current government. But today people in power have reached such a stage of existence that they sincerely begin to not understand: why not everyone praises them?

Nina PETLYANOVA
Photo by Sergei ERMOKHIN

PS: The St. Petersburg police refused official comments regarding the rally scheduled for April 27. But if until now the gray uniforms “maintained order” at events against the current government, then I don’t even want to imagine how they could act at a rally – essentially – against themselves...

Greens have turned orange: they are calling for Matvienko's resignation
The leaders of the St. Petersburg opposition no longer have any illusions about the current government: neither in St. Petersburg in particular, nor in Russia in general. The authorities don’t even want to hear cries for help, why should they listen to criticism...
On April 17, the green faction of the Yabloko party took the initiative to begin collecting signatures to demand the resignation of St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko. The leaders of other opposition movements did not support the proposal. Instead, a coordination meeting of the opposition was announced for April 18. At the time of going to press this issue was still ongoing. The St. Petersburg oppositionists were deciding: is it worth conducting further negotiations with Smolny or not? Should we demand the resignation of government officials or ask international independent organizations and experts to conduct a full investigation of the facts and events described above, and then draw the appropriate conclusions? More about this in the next issues of Novaya.