Moscow City Hall Threatens to Prosecute Participants of Single Pickets on April 19

On April 15, the head of the Moscow regional security department, Alexei Mayorov, said that any uncoordinated opposition events in the center of Moscow on April 19 "will be regarded as unauthorized actions." His words were quoted by the Vedomosti newspaper, citing Interfax. According to Mayorov, the organizers and participants of the action "will be held accountable in accordance with their actions."

The mayor's office also stressed that April 15 is the last day when the event can be approved, and noted that the route proposed by city authorities in northwest Moscow is "the only acceptable one for holding the event." According to Mayorov, if the event is not approved by the end of the day, the mayor's office will require the prosecutor's office to "warn the organizers."

After the opposition march in the center of Moscow was denied approval, the organizers refused to move it to the outskirts and stated that they reserved the right to hold the event in another legal format. "Many members of the "Protest Actions Committee" decided to go to single pickets in the center of Moscow. Such pickets do not require approval. Then we will quietly and calmly go and lay flowers at the place where Boris Nemtsov died," one of the organizers, Alexander Ryklin, said on April 15.

"We are monitoring the activity of the event organizers on the Internet and in the media, and some of them are calling on citizens to go out along the routes they have announced (in the city center). We are sharing this information with law enforcement agencies, and if citizens go out and hold uncoordinated actions, they will bear the responsibility established by law," TASS quotes Mayorov as saying.

Meanwhile, single pickets cannot be declared illegal or uncoordinated, since they do not require prior notification of city authorities. It is also possible to hold a series of single pickets if the distance between picketers does not violate the threshold established by regional legislation - in Moscow it is 50 meters. In 2012, a clause was added to the law on rallies stating that several single pickets, "united by a single idea and common organization," can be recognized as one public event, but this is possible only by a court decision, not by the police or city officials.

The "Protest Actions Committee" filed a notice with the mayor's office on April 6 to hold a protest march and rally in the center of Moscow on Sunday, April 19, with 30,000 people participating. The organizers proposed several possible routes, including from Trubnaya Square to Revolution Square or along the Boulevard Ring. At the same time, they emphasized in advance that they would not agree to move the event to the outskirts. The city authorities refused to approve the event and proposed holding the march from the Oktyabrskoye Pole metro station to the Shchukinskaya station.