Guardianship authorities tried to pick up children from the apartment of the arrested leader of the truckers protest

On March 28, guardianship officials and police came to the apartment of truck driver protest leader Andrei Bazhutin, who was arrested for 14 days, to pick up his three minor children.

According to Fontanka, the day before at the court hearing it became known that the activist’s pregnant wife was being kept in the maternity hospital. After this, Judge Marina Afanasyeva decided to notify the police and guardianship authorities “to resolve the issue of placing children in a child care facility if necessary.”

According to human rights activist Dinar Idrisov, on March 28, Natalya Bazhutina was “urgently discharged” and was at home by the time the police arrived. Fontanka writes that the police, having met the woman, lifted “the state’s claims on the children”; Idrisov claims that “the neighbors prevented them from taking the children.”

• Andrey Bazhutin is one of the organizers of the truckers’ protest, which began in Russia on March 27. He was detained on the way to the rally and charged with driving without a license. The court later arrested him. Some leaders of the action in other cities were detained.
• The all-Russian protest of truck drivers protesting against tolls for heavy vehicles on federal highways began on the morning of March 27. The Association of Russian Carriers expects that at least 10 thousand drivers across the country will take part in the protest.
• Drivers are protesting against plans to revise tariffs for truck travel on federal highways, collected through the Platon system (payment per ton). From April 2017, the fare is planned to increase by 25 percent.