A court in Moscow arrested in absentia a participant in the Unity of Equals movement who fled Russia.

On December 13, the Moscow Meshchansky Court arrested Alexander Horrshr, a participant in the civil movement “Unity of Equals,” in absentia for two months. This was reported by Kommersant with reference to Open Russia lawyer Sergei Badamshin.

Currently, Alexander Horrshr is in Finland, where he received political asylum.

On February 25, 2016, Alexander Horrshr was detained and taken to the FSB for questioning in a criminal case. On March 3, he was charged with calls for extremist activity in connection with publications on social networks (under Part 2 of Article 280 of the Criminal Code).

“These are a total of five VKontakte posts condemning the actions of government authorities. Horrshr admitted that he published these posts: these included posts in support of the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo and calls for mass protests,” Sergei Badamshin told Kommersant. According to the lawyer, any citizen of Russia has a constitutional right to freedom of expression. “Alas, the implementation of this right comes into conflict with Art. 280 of the Criminal Code."