They hit me in the face, but according to the documents - no

St. Petersburg police told activist Danila Alexandrov, who was beaten by unknown assailants in February of this year, that no one touched him. Therefore, it was refused to initiate a criminal case regarding the threats previously received against Alexandrov.

The story of bloggers who criticized Putin and lost their property, teeth and peace for this has been going on for so long that it seems it will never end.

In February, St. Petersburg Observers volunteer Danila Aleksandrov was beaten by unknown assailants. Doctors diagnosed a broken nose and a concussion. A week before the incident, he received a threat from a fake account. The anonymous author published photographs of the activist taken during surveillance of him, posts on his behalf and reported that he knew his address.

In April, translator Yulia Chernobrodova was sent threats from fake pages indicating her real name and address, photographs of her husband entering the entrance, and her mother-in-law was warned that nervous friends lived next to Yulia. Chernobrodova contacted the 23rd police department, but law enforcement officers “did not discover” the reality and specificity of the threats expressed. After she contacted the prosecutor's office, the materials were returned to the police for additional verification. Meanwhile, Yulia found information about herself on a website where anonymous people post confidential information about oppositionists, and her husband’s car was burned.

In June, the administrator of the “Criminal Power” public page, Egor Alekseev, and an employee of the VKontakte social network, Denis Samsonov, were beaten.

After parliamentary inquiries and publicity in the press, the police seemed to be moving.

As soon as the excitement subsided, Alekseev received a decision to refuse to initiate a criminal case; Aleksandrov’s investigation was suspended because they could not find anyone. Although here even the journalists who conducted the investigation hinted, pointing a finger in the direction of the head of the Concord company, the owner of the notorious “Internet troll factory” Yevgeny Prigozhin. All that was needed was to break through the IP, but the police did not do this.

Nevertheless, at the end of October, Yulia Chernobrodova received an encouraging letter from the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg, from which it followed that the security forces did not rule out merging the cases of Chernobrodova, Aleksandrov and Alexander Markov (he was beaten on the threshold of his own apartment). First Deputy Head of the State Investigative Directorate O. V. Antropov emphasized that the investigation into the criminal case of Chernobrodova was taken under the control of the State Investigative Directorate.

“The investigation into these criminal cases continues,” Antropov wrote, “investigative actions are being carried out aimed at establishing all the circumstances of the crimes, including checking the version that these crimes were committed for political reasons.”

At the request of the Commissioner for Human Rights in St. Petersburg, Alexander Shishlov, the security forces conducted a check on threats against the victims, since some, in particular Chernobrodova, continue to receive them. Aleksandrov even went to the 85th department of the Petrodvortsovo district, where he was asked whether the threats had stopped, how he perceived them and what he wanted.

A month later, the police came up with the most absurd answer. In the first paragraph and... O. The interrogator, Senior Lieutenant D. Zh. Mirzoev, conscientiously retells Aleksandrov’s explanations, saying, yes, threats have been coming since the end of 2014 “in connection with his political activities and publications on political topics on the social network VKontakte,” on February 9 he was attacked, during which mild bodily injuries were caused, the Department of Internal Affairs in the Petrodvortsovy District has opened a criminal case on this fact, the investigation of which continues to this day.”

“Since April 2016, threats against Alexandrov on social networks have ceased, but Alexandrov is still concerned about the dissemination of his personal data,” notes Mirzoev.

And then follows a passage that is in no way consistent with the previous text: “Taking into account the above and taking into account that during the verification of objective data indicating the presence of a crime under Art. 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (threat of murder or infliction of grievous bodily harm), was not received, since the objective side of the crime is characterized by active actions and must be real. In this case, there is no reality of threats, since no physical impact was carried out.” (We keep the original spelling.)

Thus, according to Mirzoev’s logic, it turns out that Alexandrov’s broken nose and concussion have nothing to do with physical impact.

Alexandrov intends to appeal the dismissal. And Chernobrodova jokes that the investigators simply copied it from some other rejected case and pasted it into this answer without looking. Otherwise it is difficult to explain such contradictions.

The office of the St. Petersburg Ombudsman assured that they have not yet received an official response from the police, but the human rights ombudsman considers the resolution sent to Alexandrov to be illegal. The resolution provides an “argument” that there are no real threats, since “no physical impact was carried out,” but does not assess the February attack. Alexander Shishlov believes that the reality of threats is characterized not only by physical actions, but also by threats on social networks. If Alexandrov turns to the Commissioner for Human Rights, he will send repeated letters to the St. Petersburg prosecutor Litvinenko and the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Umnov with recommendations to entrust the re-inspection not to the district commissioner, but to the Center for Combating Extremism (Center “E”).