The protocol is gone

On May 13, the Petersburg activist Krasimir Vranks chained himself handcuffs to the gates of the construction near the Alexandrino Park, opposing illegal construction. He was detained. The activist told the ATS-Info how it was.

Since 2012, the struggle of the residents of the Ulyanka quarter in St. Petersburg has not stopped against illegal sealing development, which is in place in the territory adjacent to the Alexandrino Park (a cultural heritage object of federal significance).

Local residents and city defenders have already won 23 trials, and the Supreme Court decided on the illegality of construction and canceled the entire new development in the quarter. However, despite this, the construction company “Warrior-V” continues to work, and construction equipment still destroys the object of cultural heritage.

To prevent the passage of construction equipment, on May 13 at 12:00 I chained myself handcuffs to the gates of illegal construction in the presence of journalists and local residents. Representatives of the developer called the police, which arrived an hour after the call, although the department is 500 meters from the scene. The police cut off the handcuffs and detained me, charging under Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (disobedience to the legal order of the police officer), despite the lack of physical opportunity to submit to their requirement and move away from the gates of construction. At the same time, police officers announced the legality of construction work, however, the documents proving this did not show on my requirement.

After the detention, I was taken to the duty unit of the 8th police department to draw up the protocol. They also wanted to imptorate me article 19.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (arbitrariness). However, after I consulted with the activists of the organization “Assistance to the detainees”, who explained that it was unlawful to add this article, since I did not cause any damage, the protocol disappeared. Later, police officers said that they were refusing to charge this article. But they attracted under article 19.3. With the help of lawyers from the above organization, he wrote in the protocol that I refused to plead guilty, since I did not have the opportunity to obey the police (I was chained and there were no keys to handcuffs).

I spent 5 hours in the department, at the 3rd o'clock they wanted to let me go, but I insisted that I needed to wait for a lawyer so that he would check everything. After the arrival of the lawyer, he signed the paper that I undertake to appear on May 18 at the request of the police or the court (at the time of the publication of the story, the court had not yet taken place- the OVD-Info ). Then he was released and went to the place of development, where a meeting of the residents of the quarter was held in defense of the Alexandrino Park.