The candidate from the Democratic Coalition in the elections to the Duma of the Kostroma Region, Ilya Yashin, who was detained on Wednesday at a meeting with voters, is being subject to a protocol under Article 19.3 of the Administrative Code, which provides for up to 15 days of arrest, the oppositionist said on Twitter.

Yashin was detained during a meeting with voters, which took place in the courtyard of a house in Kostroma. “Two police officers and an FSB operative approached me. They tried to disrupt the meeting, but I refused to talk to them and continued to communicate with voters, and our lawyers spoke with the police,” Yashin told Novaya Gazeta. According to him, police officers announced that the meeting was illegal, and when he objected, they “wrung his hands in front of frozen people.”

On Twitter, Yashin said that he was taken to police department No. 1 of Kostroma and a detention report is being drawn up under Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (disobedience to a lawful order of a police officer). This article provides for up to 15 days of arrest. If arrested for this period, Yashin will be released four days before the elections to the Kostroma Regional Duma, which will take place on September 13.

For his part, the deputy head of the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kostroma Region, Alexander Dugarev, said that an administrative protocol was being drawn up against Yashin “for violating the law of the Kostroma Region on maintaining silence and disobedience to the legal demands of police officers,” RIA Novosti reports .

“Well, it’s not just that they were detained - the situation is what: they organized a meeting there using sound amplifying equipment - speakers and so on. They were warned that this violates the law of the Kostroma region (on silence), that they cannot... use this, that please carry out everything... Despite this, they continued to violate everything,” said a representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

August 26, 2015

Ilya Yashin, detained in Kostroma, may be arrested for 15 days