Whipping and surrender boy

On July 14, Vsevolod Ostapov, who was beaten in the Sokolniki police station, was charged with assaulting a policeman

The confrontation between Vsevolod Ostapov, a 22-year-old third-year student of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the RUDN University, and the policemen of the Sokolniki police department began on April 4 last year. At the Sokolniki metro station, Vsevolod met with ...

The confrontation between Vsevolod Ostapov, a 22-year-old third-year student of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the RUDN University, and the policemen of the Sokolniki police department began on April 4 last year.

At the Sokolniki metro station, Vsevolod met with informal friends (a decent crowd gathered). Police officers approached Ostapov - he had an open bottle of beer in his hand. “I threw away the bottle and asked the policemen to introduce themselves,” he says. The police officers refused to show their IDs and tried to detain Vsevolod. He did not resist, but Seva's friends formed a human chain and did not let him go. The policemen called for help. Arriving reinforcements coped with the resistance. During the arrest, they were thrown to the ground, kicked, and then handcuffed. All this was filmed on the mobile phones of eyewitnesses.

Seven people ended up in the Sokolniki police department, where they were beaten for 24 hours - this is confirmed by medical indications.

The criminal case was initiated within the prescribed ten days: article 318 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - "Use of violence not dangerous to life or health, or the threat of violence against a representative of the authorities or his relatives in connection with the performance of his official duties." The only defendant was student Vsevolod Ostapov, who is accused of spraying a gas canister and hitting a policeman in the groin, causing him to fall and lose consciousness.

“We do not deny that someone in the crowd used a spray can,” says Yevgeny Chernousov, Ostapov’s lawyer. “But it physically couldn’t be Vsevolod: the police officers held him by the hands on the one hand and his friends tried to pull him away on the other: this is confirmed by witnesses.” According to the lawyer, Seva was made a defendant only because a gas canister was found among his belongings.

As for the beating of young people who “at the same time” ended up in the department, the struggle for the initiation of a criminal case against the policemen of the Sokolniki police department went on for about three months. Activists, anarchists and antifa held two large-scale actions. One of them, allowed by the Moscow authorities, took place on April 11 at the monument to Cyril and Methodius, in Kitay-gorod. About 400 people gathered for the event, they stretched out a large banner: "No to cop arbitrariness." The action ended in a fight with police officers, 15 people were detained.

The organizers of the Moscow authorities did not notify about another action. On the evening of April 18, 150 people blocked traffic along Tverskaya Street and marched with the same slogan from the Pushkinskaya metro station to the Belorusskaya metro station. In addition, human rights activists wrote numerous letters about the need to hold police officers accountable.

As a result, in June last year, a criminal case was nevertheless initiated. With the wording "abuse of power and use of violence by unidentified police officers in the police station." True, there is no progress in the case against the "unidentified policemen" - in contrast to the investigation against Ostapov.

Vsevolod Ostapov's lawyer, Yevgeny Chernousov, suggests that such an unsuccessful investigation of the police case is due to the fact that both investigations on charges of policemen in beating young people and on charges of Vsevolod Ostapov in attacking a policeman are conducted by the Investigation Department of the Preobrazhensky District (three investigators have already changed).

As a result, the names of the police officers who beat the detainees are unknown, and the young people have not yet been recognized as victims. Vsevolod Ostapov himself was not recognized as a victim - there are no results of a forensic medical examination in the case. But the examination was carried out, lawyer Chernousov explains, but its results were only in the case of the “attack” on policemen. And this investigation is progressing much more successfully. On July 14, the Investigative Department of the Preobrazhensky District charged the student Vsevolod Ostapov, and he was interrogated in a new capacity. He faces up to five years in prison.

So far, one investigator is dealing with two cases with the same defendants, but with varying degrees of success, Seva's friends organize pickets and rallies in his defense. On July 11, a picket in support of Ostapov was held on Pushkinskaya Square, which was attended by about 150 people. The action was called "Reclining Protest" - young people lay down on the asphalt, holding signs in their hands: "I dropped a baton on myself", "Accidentally fell down the stairs", "Accidentally dislocated my joints", "He hit his head against the wall of the cell." On July 15, several people in masks depicting Guy Fawkes (a historical figure, a famous participant in the Gunpowder Plot in 1605) blocked traffic on Bakuninskaya Street for several minutes, stretching out a banner “We demand to close the Sokolniki police department.” Support actions for Seva were also held in Kyiv and St. Petersburg. And last Saturday, the Day of United Actions in support of Seva Ostapov and against police arbitrariness was held in Moscow. One of the events of the day was the presentation on Bolotnaya Square of paintings by St. Petersburg artists who had previously held hunger strike exhibitions in protest against the dispersal of the May Day column of anarchists in St. Petersburg and the arrest of artist Artem Loskutov in Novosibirsk.

Law enforcement officials refuse to comment and demand to send a request. We will send. "New" monitors the development of the situation.