Translated material
Political pressure: media digest (October 16-22)
"Bolotnaya case"
Human Rights Watch calls for the release of all accused from custody
Human Rights Watch website, October 16 :
“Russian authorities should change the preventive measure to non-custodial measures for all defendants in the Bolotnaya case and investigate allegations of unlawful treatment and denial of medical care,” Human Rights Watch said. <…> “Nine demonstrators wasted a year of their lives behind bars,” said Rachel Denber , deputy director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch. “And it appears that some are being treated illegally or not receiving the treatment they need.”
Mikhail Kosenko's defense appealed the decision to send him for compulsory treatment
“As lawyer Valery Shukhardin explained, until the decision comes into force, Kosenko will continue to be held in a pre-trial detention center. “We categorically disagree with the ruling and demand that it be canceled on appeal,” the lawyer said.”
Acting Director of the Serbsky Institute justifies the decision regarding Kosenko
Radio Liberty, October 22:
“Today, the head of the Serbsky Institute, Zurab Kekelidze, rejected claims against his colleagues who conducted a psychiatric examination of another person involved in the Bolotnaya case, Mikhail Kosenko. Based on this examination, the court decided to send Kosenko for compulsory treatment. According to Zurab Kekelidze, the conclusion that Kosenko is socially dangerous was based, among other things, on the data of the judicial investigation:
- As for the social danger, we proceed from the fact that he did it - he hit. The man came to the rally, many were there, but it was he who struck. A person punches or kicks a law enforcement official? Is this dangerous for a law enforcement representative? And how does the law determine what the punishment for this is? This is a danger to society. Is he a danger to himself? Yes, it's dangerous. Because he doesn't realize that if he does this, he faces up to 10 years in prison. One of Kosenko’s lawyers said that he should be declared sane. Explain how to recognize a disabled person of the second group as sane in this situation?”
Kosenko will be sent to the notorious psychiatric hospital near the Stolbovaya station
“He was assigned compulsory treatment in a general hospital. This will be Moscow hospital number 5,” Kekelidze said.”
Yaroslav Belousov's preventive measure was not changed despite the need to care for his young son who underwent surgery
“The Zamoskvoretsky court of Moscow on Tuesday refused to release from arrest one of the defendants in the case of the riots on Bolotnaya Square that occurred in May last year, Yaroslav Belousov, lawyer Dmitry Agranovsky told RAPSI. “We asked to change Belousov’s preventive measure to one unrelated to imprisonment in connection with the illness of Yaroslav himself - he has vegetative-vascular dystonia of the hypertensive type, as well as his son Andrei, who was diagnosed with a suppurating cyst in the neck. The court refused us,” Agranovsky said "
Sergei Krivov continues to go on hunger strike
“According to Krivov’s lawyer Vyacheslav Makarov, his client is outraged by the fact that he does not receive records of court hearings, the judge does not allow him to file a petition:
“He doesn’t feel well, and he hasn’t been given a medical examination. They only weigh him every other day - that’s all the medical care. It is very difficult to talk about specific weight loss. In the pre-trial detention center they try to weigh him on non-working mechanical scales (he refuses) - they can sometimes even show zero when a person is standing. There are no specific medical indications. No one recorded what weight was at the start of the hunger strike.”
Regular hearings were held at the “Press Center of the Bolotnoye Case”
“Grani.Ru” (Dmitry Borko’s blog), October 22 :
“At the regular hearings in the press center of the Bolotnaya case, I saw many offended people. Andrei Bilzho, who remembered his former profession and “harnessed” to Misha Kosenko, is outraged by the diagnosis. Kosenko, according to him, could be an excellent illustration of his dissertation, devoted to just such cases - a long, monotonous, without deterioration, course of the disease after a one-time surge in youth. Which completely refutes the “official” psychiatrists who claim that such diseases must progress. But Bilzho is also offended by the reaction of his former colleagues, who have already tried to sarcastically doubt his knowledge. However, there is also ferment in the professional world of psychiatry. As a result, he and independent expert Savenko are invited to a closed meeting where psychiatrists will discuss the ethical side of the situation. And on Tuesday a press conference will be held at RIAN by the director of the Institute. Serbian Zurab Kekelidze entitled “Who benefits from the myth of punitive psychiatry?” It seems that our doctors remembered how they were expelled from the World Psychiatric Association during the Soviet years, and launched a counterattack. Memorial co-chairman and experienced human rights activist Oleg Orlov is personally offended by the verdict of judge [Lyudmila] Moskalenko. In the Kosenko episode, he was a direct witness, as was his colleague Jan Raczynski. But in the court ruling all eight defense witnesses were given only two lines [at the hearing Orlov spoke about two paragraphs] <...> I have long noticed how the procedure that we call a “trial” insults the brilliant lawyer and true gentleman Vadim Klyuvgant - how any kind of profanity. <…> I have never seen Lyudmila Alekseeva so angry as in this last year.”
A Solidarity activist asked for political asylum in Lithuania, he fears persecution in the Bolotnaya case
“Vsevolod Chernozub left Russia in the spring of 2013, fearing persecution in the Bolotnaya case. Until the fall, he lived in Ukraine, from where he left for Lithuania. Vsevolod Chernozub was on Bolotnaya Square on May 6, 2012, when clashes between police and participants in the agreed “March of Millions” took place there. He is captured in photographs."
Two more people who fled persecution in the Bolotnaya case received asylum in Finland
“Finland granted political asylum to two activists who participated in the demonstration on Bolotnaya Square. As yle.fi reports with reference to the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, Alexey Devyatkin and his wife, journalist Jenny Kurpen, managed to cross through Ukraine to Finland after the authorities began systematically detaining participants in protest marches.”
Pussy Riot
Tolokonnikova was taken from the Mordovian colony
“Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova will go beyond the Urals, where she will continue to serve her “two-room sentence.” After the scandal in Mordovian penal colony No. 14 and the announced hunger strike, the FSIN finally made concessions to the convict - Tolokonnikova will be transferred to another colony. According to Izvestia’s sources in the prison department, two zones are now being considered for Tolokonnikova: in the Sverdlovsk region and the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Both of them are hundreds of kilometers from Moscow, and the journey there will take several weeks. In the Sverdlovsk region there is only one women's zone - IK-6, it is located in Nizhny Tagil. As in Mordovian, where Tolokonnikova is now located, there are about a thousand people there, mostly women employed in clothing production. True, they sew mainly underwear, not police uniforms. <...> According to a well-informed source in the central office of the Federal Penitentiary Service, the “six” were “lobbied” by the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Sverdlovsk Region, Tatyana Merzlyakova.
“They planned to transport her to Krasnoyarsk, but Merzlyakova insisted that they be sent to their region, she was supported in this by Vladimir Lukin, the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation,” he says. — The fact is that Lukin was promised that Tolokonnikova would be transferred to another colony after the hospital (where she ended up because of a hunger strike. - Izvestia), but in fact they deceived her. And he himself called the management about this.”
Irek Murtazin's blog, October 22 :
“Tolokonnikova was taken from Mordovia and is being taken to Nizhny Tagil . There is a very high probability that the girl will not reach the final destination of the transfer. And here's why. <...> Here is the route of Tolokonnikova’s “travel”, about two thousand kilometers long: Saransk - Ulyanovsk - Kazan - Izhevsk - Perm - Yekaterinburg - Nizhny Tagil. In the transit cells of the pre-trial detention centers of these cities, Nadya will wait for “fellow travelers.” “Transfers” are the worst thing in any pre-trial detention center (the five days spent in the “transfer” of the Kazan pre-trial detention center-2, when I was transported from Digitli to Mendeleevsk, are the darkest days among all 431 spent in captivity, in solitary confinement in a block for especially dangerous criminals of the same pre-trial detention center 2, where I spent a little over a month, it was easier) Such a trip is quite possible for a healthy person. But it's healthy. And Nadya is sick . She urgently needs to undergo antibiotic treatment. If she was sent to a prison camp without treatment, she may simply not make it to her final destination in Nizhny Tagil. In the best case, she will be removed from the prison and placed in a prison hospital somewhere in Ulyanovsk, Kazan or Perm. At worst..."
Letter from Tolokonnikova about how she was deceived and returned to IK-14
“I ask where exactly I am going. “To IK-13,” the special unit answers. - “Show me the transfer order.” “We don’t owe anything,” I receive a magic phrase in response, “but argue. The outfit lists IK-13.” Indeed, I look at IK-13. I'm surprised. I'm trying to ask why such haste. All my things are right there, at the checkpoint. I don’t know who collected them and when they were collected while I was receiving the magazines. Later it turns out that not all things were collected. Employees of Hospital No. 21 push out my bags and throw me into a paddy wagon. <…> So, I’m shoved into a paddy wagon and off I go. Half an hour. We've arrived. I’m at IK-14.”
Tolokonnikova asks to revoke the status of her former lawyer Volkova
“Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova asked her defense to contact the Moscow City Bar Association with a demand to investigate the informal contacts of her former lawyers Violetta Volkova, Nikolai Polozov and Mark Feigin with the leadership of the Federal Penitentiary Service. The Pussy Riot member wrote about this in a statement given to Lenta.Ru by her husband Pyotr Verzilov. Tolokonnikova also asks the chamber to deprive Volkova of his lawyer status. As a Pussy Riot member explained in her letter, on the afternoon of October 18, Violetta Volkova arrived for a date with her at IK-14. The lawyer, according to Tolokonnikova, suggested that she “quietly solve the problem with the transfer, using her personal connections in the leadership of the FSIN.” Also, Volkova, according to a member of the punk band, began to suggest that she “not stir up a scandal.” She allegedly assured Tolokonnikova that “everyone had forgotten about her,” the media did not write about her, and therefore “everything needs to be resolved through me.” As the convict notes, Volkova was allowed into the territory of the colony without hindrance, while her current lawyer, Dmitry Dinza, was allowed entry only on the instructions of the Investigative Committee.”
Alekhina withdrew her petition to replace the punishment with a more lenient one
“Convicted member of the punk group Pussy Riot Maria Alyokhina withdrew her petition to change the sentence to a more lenient one on Friday at a meeting of the Avtozavodsky District Court of Nizhny Novgorod, an Interfax correspondent reports from the courtroom. “I think it is unethical to go to trial when another member of Pussy Riot is in the hospital. I do not have the moral right to go to trial when my friend Nadezhda Tolokonnikova does not have such an opportunity because she is in a hospital or a colony, about which they say terrible things “If the Russian authorities are ready to release me early, let them do it as part of a broad amnesty along with other convicted women with young children,” Alekhina explained her intention to the judge.”
“ The Avtozavodsky Court of Nizhny Novgorod today granted the request of Pussy Riot punk group member Maria Alekhina not to consider the petition for a commutation of sentence and to leave her in prison until the end of her sentence, which expires in March 2014. According to the press service of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court , Alekhina stated that she made this decision “without any coercion from the outside.” The lawyer supported his client. In turn, the prosecutor did not object. As a result, the court stopped proceedings to consider Maria Alekhina’s petition to commute her sentence.”
prosecution
They want to prohibit members of banned movements from forming new ones
“On October 18, 2013, the State Duma adopted in the first reading the bill “On amending Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Combating Extremist Activities.” Let us recall that the amendment to Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Combating Extremist Activities” is formulated as follows: “ A person who was previously The head or member of the governing bodies of a public or religious association, in respect of which, on the grounds provided for by this Federal Law, a court has made a decision on liquidation or prohibition of activities that has entered into legal force, cannot create a public or religious association ."
extrajudicial prosecution
Nemtsov’s assistants who distributed his reports were detained in Yaroslavl
“On October 19, 2013, in Yaroslavl, the TsPE police officers, on suspicion of distributing extremist materials, detained for six and seven hours assistants to the deputy of the Yaroslavl Regional Duma Boris Nemtsov, the head of the local branch of RPR-Parnas Vasily Tsependa and the People's Alliance activist Philip Kegeles. The reports “The Winter Olympics in the Subtropics” and “The Life of a Galley Slave,” dedicated to corruption in preparation for the Olympics, were seized from Tsependa’s car. The police said that they were extremist materials and confiscated them without drawing up a report, despite the fact that, according to Nemtsov, back in July the head of the local Center for Extremism read the reports, and they did not raise any complaints from him.”
A human rights activist who came to the municipality with a request was detained
“About 10:15, St. Petersburg Observers activist Galina Kultiasova and human rights activist Alexey Oding came to the Sennoy Okrug municipality to submit inquiries about the work of the municipality. <…> After 10 minutes, the human rights activist reported that he was being held in the room by force and asked to call the police. According to Observers of St. Petersburg, an hour later it became known that Odinga was taken to Police Station No. 2, but “the police officer on duty refused to name the reason for the detention.” “Alexey Oding reported that, having given and registered his statements, he went to photograph the information stand of the municipal council of the Sennoy Okrug municipality. Since the municipal council does not publish its decisions on the date of setting public hearings either in the newspaper or on the website, the stand is the only place where residents can find out this information. Yuri Nazarov, Natalya Astakhova’s representative in court, tried to prevent Alexey Odinga from hearing the noise and calling the police about Odinga’s beating of citizen Nazarov. A crack on the information board of the municipal council was presented as evidence. which has an unknown and obviously very respectable origin. Now Alexey Oding is in the police station,” the activists said.”