An activist from Taganrog was sentenced to a year of correctional labor for leaflets.

The city court of Taganrog found the anarchist Elizaveta Tsvetkova guilty under Part 1 of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (“incitement of hostility towards a group of people on the basis of belonging to a social group -“ police officers ”) and sentenced her to 1 year of corrective labor with a deduction of 15% of her salary to the state. Information about this was posted on the website of the court on May 31.

Tsvetkova was accused of downloading a leaflet criticizing law enforcement agencies from the Internet, posting it on her page on the VKontakte social network, and then printing 50 copies and pasting them on lampposts on the eve of the Day of the employee of the internal affairs bodies of the Russian Federation. In addition, the activist was included in the federal list of terrorists and extremists and her bank card was blocked.

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."

During the trial, was interrogated candidate of political sciences, professor of the Southern Federal University Viktor Chernous , who, together with the candidate of sociological sciences, associate professor of SFU 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.”

The defense petitioned for the recognition of a number of evidence inadmissible and their exclusion from the criminal case. The examinations on which the prosecution relied, conducted by different specialists of the Forensic Center of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Rostov Region at different times and in different criminal cases, were completely identical in conclusions and even in descriptive and substantive parts. In September last year, acting The prosecutor of Taganrog discovered numerous violations of the law in this criminal case, refused to approve the indictment on it and returned it to the Investigative Committee to eliminate the violations. Nevertheless, the case went to court, and now to a guilty verdict.

During the debate, the deputy prosecutor of Taganrog, Vadim Dikarev, asked the court to sentence Tsvetkova to 1 year in prison to be served in a colony-settlement.

“Perhaps I am a very impressionable person, but it seems to me that one cannot remain indifferent after publications about high-profile cases that have received great public outcry. This is the case of Major Yevsyukov, who shot civilians in a supermarket, and the case of torture in Dalny, where a man died. These cases in any person cause a negative attitude towards the illegal actions of police officers. I remain convinced that cases of bribery, torture and murder must be stopped,” Tsvetkova said in her final speech.