The court in the Stavropol region did not satisfy the complaints of participants in single pickets in defense of women

On February 1, the Stavropol Regional Court refused to satisfy the appeals of five participants in a series of pickets for women's rights that took place on December 18 in Stavropol. Thus, the decisions of the Leninsky District Court of Stavropol, which found five young people guilty of violating the law “On meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and picketing”, were upheld. Kirill Bobro, one of the protesters, told OVD-Info about this.

On December 30, 2016, the court of first instance fined Anastasia Antonets twenty thousand rubles under part 2 of article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, considering her the organizer of a public event that was not coordinated with the local authorities. Kirill Bobro, Roman Fatulaev, Tatyana Glinberg and Artem Sagaydakov were fined ten thousand rubles, having been recognized as participants in a public event that was not agreed with the local authorities (under part 5 of article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). However, the court replaced Sagaydakov with a fine of 10,000 rubles for 30 hours of compulsory work.

At the end of December last year, five members of the Youth Yabloko and non-party activists were charged with protocols under the second part of Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses for “organizing” or “holding” an event without filing a notification.

At the same time, the action itself, after which administrative cases were brought against the activists, took place on December 18, 2016 and consisted of a series of single pickets, the participants of which stood at a distance of fifty meters from one another, and, therefore, did not require prior notification. Nevertheless, a week after the rally, the prosecutor's office demanded that administrative cases be opened. On December 27, the protesters were held at the police station for four hours, and their passports were confiscated before the trial.

Nika Kakobyan, a Stavropol activist, told OVD-Info that the city authorities had earlier refused to allow feminists and members of the Youth Yabloko to coordinate a rally in defense of women's rights on Fortress Hill, citing preparations for the New Year holidays. After that, they decided to hold the action in the format of a series of single pickets. However, according to Anastasia Antonets, a participant in the action, the police and the Center "E" disrupted the action 10 minutes after the start of the solo pickets and interrogated all the participants. Antonets herself was summoned to the prosecutor's office the next day. The activists are going to appeal against the refusal to agree: as Antonets emphasized, on December 18, no preparations were made for the holidays on Krepostnaya Hill, and the city authorities, refusing to agree, did not offer the organizers of the rally an alternative place, as required by law.