The prosecutor asked for a year in a penal colony for an activist for distributing leaflets.

On May 16, 2016, the Taganrog City Court held a debate between the parties in a criminal case on inciting hatred and enmity on the basis of belonging to the social group “police officers” (part 1 of article 282 of the Criminal Code) against anarchist Elizaveta Tsvetkova, her lawyer Yevgeny Chupilkin reports. The prosecution asked the court to sentence Tsvetkova to imprisonment for a term of 1 year to be served in a colony-settlement. The defense asked the defendant to be fully acquitted.

The activist is accused of downloading a leaflet criticizing law enforcement agencies from the social network VKontakte, printing it out and posting it on public transport stops and lampposts on the eve of the Day of the Internal Affairs Officer. Despite the fact that in September acting. The prosecutor of Taganrog discovered numerous violations of the law in this criminal case, refused to approve the indictment and returned the case to the Investigative Committee to eliminate violations, it still went to court.

Linguistic experts who studied the leaflets that caused Tsvetkova’s persecution pointed out that “the communicative orientation of the studied text of the leaflet is connected with the desire not only to identify and show the most negative aspects in the activities of the Russian police, but also to change the state of affairs in the work of the modern Russian police”, and also "in general, this text cannot be considered critical, although some of the information may be considered critical."

In court, was interrogated the candidate of political sciences, professor of the Southern Federal University Viktor Chernous , who, together with the candidate of sociological sciences, associate professor of the Southern Federal University Anna Shapovalova, conducted a sociological study of the text of the leaflet. He confirmed the conclusion: “The police are an organizational group, but do not constitute an independent social group. The leaflet submitted for examination cannot be considered as a political leaflet, as it does not have an indication of authorship - individual or organizational. It is an emotional attack against those police officers who, in relation to citizens, resort to unlawful methods and use various forms of violence.” Psychologist expert Evgenia Korkina from the Don Forensic Science Center confirmed in court the conclusion made in the conclusion that it is not possible to answer the question of whether police officers, from the point of view of psychology, are a social group, “it is not possible, since its decision is beyond the competence of the expert /specialist psychologist.

Earlier, the defense petitioned for the recognition of a number of evidence inadmissible and their exclusion from the criminal case. “We drew the attention of the court to several examinations at once. One of them was held at the Forensic Center of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Rostov Region, which, obviously, cannot objectively answer the question about a leaflet criticizing the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as they themselves relate to the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Also, the materials of the criminal case and the indictment contain three conclusions of expert linguists, which were carried out by experts from the same ECC of the GUMD of the Rostov Region, Melnikova and Gurova. All three were conducted at different times, on different criminal cases, appointed by different investigators, but all three are identical, in content - a solid identity. It turns out that the same experts in different opinions on different criminal cases changed only the date of the examination, the full name and position of the investigators who ordered the research, while the descriptive, research part and conclusions were left unchanged. And we brought a lot of similar moments, but the judge refused this petition, ”says Chupilkin.

Elizaveta Tsvetkova was included in the federal list of terrorists and extremists and her bank card was blocked. The last word is scheduled for May 27, 15:00.