Without cubes, but with balls

The opposition and power sat down at the negotiating table. So far, in the prefecture of the Central Administrative District of Moscow. Today there was a meeting between the activists of the Party of Progress and the Deputy Prefect Kirill Vorontsov. The reason was new requirements for pickets. Recently, the prefecture has been coordinating pickets with a mandatory reservation that it should be carried out "without the installation of metal structures, tents, tables and other attributes."

Under the “metal structures”, apparently, “Cuba”, introduced into circulation by the supporters of Alexei Navalny during his election campaign in Moscow (since Cuba became plastic, in the papers from the prefecture began to be mentioned simply “structures”). Under the "other attributes" can be understood anything at all. The attribute will cross out the possibility of a picket in the root, since an attribute can be a badge, a T -shirt, and even a cap, ”said Nikolai Lyaskin, head of the Moscow party department, at the meeting. “This makes it possible for some very corrosive employee of the council or police to pester any participant in the picket who has an icon.” According to Lyaskin, such formulations began to appear since last year, during the trial of Alexei and Oleg Navalny in the “Iv Rocher case” - before that, Cuba managed to coordinate without problems. Party activist Vitaly Seerukanov explained to the OVD-Info that if you follow the law, then the installation of cubes does not require approval at all, since it is just a means for visual agitation and informing the population. Nevertheless, in order to avoid unnecessary disputes with the Moscow authorities, they declare these events as pickets, thereby making cubes “objects of picket”.

As for the absurdity of the "other attributes" of the deprivation, it was possible to convince quite quickly. Vorontsov admitted that this is a “really general concept” and this wording should be revised. When the conversation came to constructions and tables, he recalled that “we should not go in cycles only on Moscow Law No. 10 and Federal No. 54 (regulating the rules for conducting mass events-ATS-Info), there are other regulatory acts”. Vorontsov shared the problem, in common, according to him, with colleagues in other districts: “The organizers come and say: we will agitate for a healthy lifestyle. Fine. But in practice, it turns out that a tent is put, a table, product samples are set, and trade begins. Of course, we cut off trading by other regulatory arrangement, but everyone is looking for a way out. They began to put a box and tell people: I am a sample of what we recommend, and you can put money here. ” Vorontsov also mentioned the tents to collect donations. Just the other day, it became known that Moscow authorities began to coordinate the collection of donations for Donbass in tents, since they cannot trace where this money goes. At the same time, quite many months these tents stood and raised money with the same degree of transparent, but this did not embarrass the authorities. At the meeting, Vorontsov explained that the prefecture thus reacts to complaints: tents, they say, interfered with people. And since the tents are impossible, then other designs too.

Vorontsov explained to the activists of the Party of Progress that their Cubes "have a certain advertising character." “When the organizers bring us a notification, we do not know what the action is carried out under their sign,” said the deputy law, “but then it turns out that this is an ordinary advertising campaign. And for such shares there is a completely different order. ” He advised activists, however, to submit his pickets in notifications not as advertising actions, but as “cultural and educational events”. They require more serious preparation - in particular, notifications about them need to be submitted at least a month before the appointed date, and in the notification, indicate “Conditions of organizational, financial and other security” of the event.

Opponents of the deprivation nevertheless did not agree that they could not use the structures on the picket. Activist of the progress Party Vitaly Seerukanov recalled that the federal law states that “other means of visual agitation” can be used during picket, that is, there is no exhaustive list of agitation for campaigning. Nikolai Lyaskin noticed that if the poster is put on the ground, it can also be considered a design and banned. But Kirill Vorontsov insisted that the design on the picket was not suitable. “It is one thing when people go: a person can dress in anyone, he may have a ten-meter flag, you had a good idea with balls (on a campaign in anticipation of the failed march“ Vesna ”-ATS-Info). And when you put something immovable, collapsible, the questions begin: why can they, but we can’t? ” - said the official.

Finally, Vorontsov promised to specify the requirements of the prefecture for the organizers of the pickets and discuss a new option with activists in a week. And also said that in the future, if activists plan a series of pickets, is ready to "sit down and speak with the involvement of police officers so that they also understand."