The ECHR communicated a complaint about the illegal suppression of the tea party

On September 29, the European Court of Human Rights communicated complaints from those detained for drinking tea at a school in Novorossiysk in 2007. Lawyer of the Memorial Human Rights Center Tatyana Glushkova reported this on her Facebook page. The text of the communication was published on the official website of the court.

The applicants are lawyer Marina Dubrovina, human rights activists Vadim Karastelev, Tamara Karastelev and Vladimir Pyankov. According to a message on the ECHR website, on January 23, 2007, they planned to hold a working meeting with a colleague from Germany as part of the activities of the charitable and human rights organization “Frodo”. The meeting was to take place in the building of the art school in Novorossiysk. In the midst of the meeting, police officers entered the hall and demanded clarification regarding the meeting, but the Frodo members refused to talk without pressing charges. After the migration service officers appeared and the director asked the human rights activists to leave, they finally left the premises.

At the end of January 2007, the applicants were summoned to the police department, where protocols were drawn up against them for holding an unapproved public event (Part 2, Article 20.2 of the Administrative Code). The magistrate found the applicants guilty of holding an unapproved event at school and sentenced Marina Dubrovina to a fine of 500 rubles; the court fined Vadim and Tamara Karastelev 2,000 rubles each; Vladimir Pyankov was fined one thousand rubles. Later, these decisions were challenged in the Oktyabrsky District Court of Novorossiysk. The cases of Dubrovina and Pyankov were dismissed, and the fines of Vadim and Tamara Karastelev were reduced to one thousand and one and a half thousand, respectively.

The applicants complain of a violation of Article 11 of the Convention (right to freedom of assembly).

In recent months, news about the fate of complaints to the ECHR in cases related in one way or another to the topic of freedom of assembly in Russia has been coming more and more often. On July 7, the complaint of those detained at the Zamoskvoretsky court on February 21 was communicated . On October 4, the ECHR ordered the Russian Federation to pay one of those convicted for the events on Bolotnaya Square, Yaroslav Belousov, compensation of 12,500 euros. On September 29, the ECHR communicated complaints from those detained for kissing near the Duma building in 2013.