A court in Moscow arrested three ex-members of the “Army of the People’s Will” for “shaking the political situation”

The Khamovnichesky Court of Moscow arrested RBC journalist Alexander Sokolov, editor-in-chief of the banned newspapers “Duel” and “To the Barrier!” Yuri Mukhin and the latter’s associate Valery Parfenov on charges of participating in a banned organization that advocated holding a referendum.

As RBC reports , according to the case materials received by the court, all three continued to participate in the “Army of the People’s Will” organization after the Moscow City Court declared it extremist in the fall of 2010. Not wanting to stop the activities of the “Army of the People’s Will,” the accused renamed it the “Initiative Group for the Referendum “For Responsible Power”,” investigators say. Although the participants in the movement named “the creation of initiative groups to hold a referendum” as their goal, the investigation calls their true goal “to undermine the political situation towards instability and (the desire to) change the existing government through illegal means.”

RBC notes that all the accused asked not to satisfy the petition of investigator Natalya Talaeva, but the court did not listen to them. Mukhin, as a justification, said that he was a pensioner and a disabled person of the third group who had undergone heart surgery, and Sokolov said that his 90-year-old grandmother was dependent on him. As a result, Mukhin was arrested until September 29, Sokolov and Parfenov - until September 22.

Earlier, the Forum.Msk portal, of which Mukhin is a regular contributor, reported on the detention of the publicist in Crimea, where he arrived with his relatives. After this, according to the portal, he was charged with creating an extremist community.

Mukhin is considered the leader of the Army of the People's Will movement. Five years ago, it was recognized as an extremist organization for distributing the leaflet “You chose - you judge!” After this, Mukhin headed the initiative group for holding a referendum “For Responsible Power”. Its participants advocate holding a referendum on the adoption of an amendment to the Constitution and the law “On the trial of the people of Russia over the president and members of the Federal Assembly.” Their essence boils down to ensuring that during presidential and parliamentary elections voters can evaluate the quality of their lives under the rule of previous heads of state and parliamentarians. By design, depending on their assessment, the President and the Federal Assembly either receive the highest honors or are punished with imprisonment for a period equal to their time in power. Mukhin defended this initiative in his newspaper “Duel”.

As Forum.Msk notes, recently the convinced Stalinist Mukhin has been engaged in the “public defense” of the former Minister of Defense of the Donetsk People’s Republic Igor Strelkov, proving that the fighters of the self-proclaimed republics have nothing to do with the crash of the Boeing 777 near Donetsk.

All three are charged with Part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code (organizing the activities of a public or religious association or other organization in respect of which the court has made a decision on liquidation or prohibition of activities that has entered into legal force in connection with the implementation of extremist activities).