Translated material
OVD-Info from the inside: March 26, then everywhere
There were demons - we do not deny this. But they self -destructed. So I ask this stupid panic to stop!
Georges Miloslavsky
Hotline
OVD-Info always accepts calls about detention on a multi-channel hotline. On March 25, we strengthened it with federal free number 8 800 707-05-28 . It was clear that there would be detentions in the regions, but to call the Moscow phone - not everyone can afford: we decided that let it be better than us, not the detainees.
They began to call from 6 am on March 26 - when the action began in Vladivostok. After that, the calls, in general, do not stop to this day: after the detention, people call, first of all, to inform about the followed repressions or for legal advice.
From 26 to 29 March
1161 - so many people called us these days
Despite the fact that we have a multi -channel phone, it was extremely difficult to get through to us on March 26. Only 411 people (35%) phoned the first time. Another 228 people phoned after repeated calls, and 221 people tried to get through again, but did not get through.
639 - so many people as a result were able to get through to us
This is 55% of all unique numbers. And this is our most serious puncture. Preparing for monitoring on March 26 and analyzing the available information, we miscalculated: it was difficult to assume that so many people will be detained in dozens of cities of the country and so many detentions in Moscow. Tactical errors were made when configuring the line, as a result, we, first of all, were not enough hands (or rather, ears and mouths), and because of the crisis situation at the headquarters, we did not manage to redesign the line in time and make it possible.
46 hours - this is the total duration of the challenge to the hotline during headquarters monitoring on March 26–27
Nevertheless, only on March 26 we managed to process 657 calls (many people called more than once, since the situation has constantly changed). We add that in addition to the hotline phone, the information came to us on social networks and on the phones of lawyers who were at the headquarters - as a result, by night we had information about almost all the ATS, where the detainees were delivered on March 26 in Moscow.
55% is a lower assessment, excluding other communication lines, nevertheless, it shows well how the OTD-info was not ready for the situation.
DDOS ATAKA
About 12 days, even before the start of mass detentions in Moscow, we noticed that something was happening with our servers. Despite the previously expanded power compared to “peaceful” time. We immediately carried out another four -fold increase in power, but this did not have any effect: our site became completely inaccessible to users.
Alas, the OVD-info was absolutely not ready for a powerful DDOS-U . Our server was quite capable of withstanding increased demand for information from ordinary users, but was attacked by TCP Syn-Flood , which turned us out of the air. The volunteer - the technical director of Medusa Samat Galimov, who quickly came to us and made giant efforts to install the attack from the attack, helped to cope with the attack. Many thanks to Samat!
DDOS-Ataka led not only to the office of the off-line during the hottest hours of March 26 (for many users it was not available longer due to some technical points), but also to a serious increase in the load on the hotline: we began to call not only the detainees, but also a variety of people who needed or are interesting to know the information that they used to find out in our cases on our site. In addition, the absence of the site seriously complicated the media communication and horizontal coordination with volunteers.
In the near future, together with Samat Galimov, we will publish technical details.
Team and headquarters
Calls about detention on the phone of the federal hotline began to arrive from six in the morning to Moscow. At nine in the morning the headquarters was opened. Lawyers of the progressive law movement took part in his work (with the support of the “Foundation for Combating Corruption”), “Rus of the Sitting” and the Human Rights Center “Memorial”, volunteers and regular composition of the OTS-Info .
The headquarters was engaged in:
Information . Reception of calls, refinement of data, publication of news and posts on social networks. At different times of the day, on March 26, this direction was simultaneously engaged in 3 to 5 people.
Coordination of legal assistance . Legal coordinators distributed at the disposal of the headquarters of lawyers and defenders in the Moscow Department of Internal Affairs, helped them go to the departments and achieve the result. Two such coordinators worked at the headquarters.
Legal consultations by phone . The headquarters was constantly from 3 to 5 lawyers who explained their rights to the detainees and advised by specific behavior tactics.
Special thanks - Nadezhda Mityushkina, Moscow "Solidarity" and other volunteers who transported in the evening and night of March 26 I go to the Moscow ATS. In which, according to our data, the detainees remained to spend the night, programs were made.
When organizing the work of the headquarters, many mistakes were made, but the main ones relate to resources: we needed more people to serve a hot line. In addition, we were mistaken with the space - the premises selected for headquarters were not intended for the number of people who eventually were in it - up to 20 people at once.
Lists of detainees
There is no censorship in the ATS-Info , but we try not to publish data that may adversely affect the fate of people who are persecuted. Mission of the OWD-Info
Those who have long been familiar with our project know that in case of mass detentions, we publish the names of the detainees. This helps relatives, friends and lawyers quickly understand in which department the specific detainee is located.
Why didn't we do this on March 26?
Yes, we believe that information about the whereabouts of the detainees protects them. Almost always.
Therefore, at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon on March 26, we began to reduce and publish lists of detainees. But at 8 pm, we received information that the investigating authorities opened a criminal case of an encroachment on the life of a law enforcement officer. We made an operational decision - not to publish the names of those who were detained in Moscow on March 26, so as not to expose them to additional danger: after all, we are well aware that even people who were not accused in the “swamp case” were not at all on Bolotnaya Square on May 6.
We did not know who the protocol on an administrative offense was drawn up for who was not, we did not know who reached the police department and who was not. Of course, this affected the number of calls to our hot line and made confusion into a general understanding of the situation.
On the night of March 26-27, we published information about the number of detainees in almost all the ATS, where the detainees were delivered. We did not know about the detainees in the Nizhny Novgorod police department and were not completely sure of which departments the detainees detained from the Izmailovo police department and the Bogorodskoye police department.
Subsequently, we began to publish the names of those who were convicted, since this information is published and available on the Internet (on the website of the Moscow City Court).
Separately, I would like to note that we never publish and sharply condemn the publication in any open space of detailed data about the detainees and their defenders, including the numbers of their phones. All the data we collected are reliably protected and are not transmitted to anyone without the approval of the detainees themselves.
Legal assistance on the day of detention
On March 26, the detainees took the 50 police departments. The headquarters of the ATS-Info sent lawyers and public defenders to 20 Moscow police department, another 24 departments were consulted in detail by lawyers by phone. In the 4s of the Department of our lawyers, they did not allow that it is an egregious violation of the law. And after the arrival of representatives of the Investigative Committee, no one could get into the department.
Volunteers, lawyers and public defenders, who have long been working in coordination with the OVD-info , as well as lawyers of the progressive law, Rus sitting center and the Memorial’s human rights center, went to the police department.
After the antidimon
Our team is grateful to those initiatives who joined the detainees on March 27 and acted in parallel with the ATS-Info :
The community of volunteers created from scratch involved in the food of the detainees and sent to specialists. Now in this community there are more than four hundred (!) Man - and this is very cool!
“ Open Russia ” and Maxim Katsu - already at 6 a.m. on Monday, their first lawyers went to the police department, and later continued active work in the courts
The Fund of Combating Corruption, which, despite the defeat of the premises and the arrests of employees and volunteers, managed to quickly deploy a hot line and begin to consult the detainees on antidimones.
Thank you!
And what did we do?
In the first days after the 26th ATS-Info, he continued to receive calls and collect information about the Moscow departments with which the connection was lost after the detainees were selected by phones.
On March 27, courts and coordination of already judicial legal assistance began. We also collected lists of sitting in Moscow specialists and published court decisions on the days (March 27 and 28 ) sending the detainees for administrative arrests.
In the first two days, mainly those who, among other things, were violated by violation of Article 19.3, part 1 (disobedience to the legal order of a police officer). At about half of these processes, the defenders were volunteers, lawyers and lawyers from human rights organizations close to the OVD-Info . In the following days, these same people protected about 80% of the detainees.
We are immensely grateful to the volunteers of our headquarters, lawyers and coordinators for what they did and continue to do for the detainees. We do not want to publish their names for the same reasons why we did not publish the names of the detainees.
All these days we continued to advise detainees from all over Russia on the phone. And, of course, as usual, they were engaged in monitoring and publication of news about detentions and other political persecutions in Russia: and the flow of reports about a variety of persecutions, including those related to the participation of antidimon, in the last days increased many times.
Finally, we managed to prepare several very important legal certificates:
On April 2, together with the human rights center "Memorial", "Rus sitting", the Public Verdict Foundation, the movement "Progressive Law" and independent lawyers, we held a legal seminar for the detainees on March 26. At the seminar, lawyers told how to defend themselves in courts, how to appeal the decision of the courts in higher authorities - up to the ECHR. The seminar was broadcast on the Internet, its recording is available here , 65 people visited in person, 41 of them were detained on March 26.
What will happen next
There are still many ships ahead. At the moment, about 200 court decisions have been issued in Moscow. This means that at least three times more awaits us ahead. This process is unlikely to take less than a month, and possibly stretch until the summer. Now for every weekday, at least ten trials are assigned, and on April 5 there were forty of them.
It is quite difficult to cope with this stream, but we put all possible efforts to this. The spontaneous coalition of the Memorial human rights center, the movements “Rus Sitting” and “Progressive Law”, the Public Verdict Foundation, independent lawyers and the ATS-info will continue to provide legal assistance to the detainees in Moscow on March 26, providing legal support in the Tver court and the Moscow City Court.
After passing the appeals, the very lawyers of our coalition, who, according to the results of mass detentions in February - March 2014, have already brought complaints 41 detained to the European Court of Human Rights, will help the detainees send their complaints to the ECHR. By the way, today, April 6, my colleagues and I began the two-day seminar “Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Assembly in Russian Courts and the ECHR” , two key reports can be listened to by online broadcasting on YouTube.
You can and should turn for help from lawyers here .
We also really hope that other organizations and initiatives that declared their readiness to provide legal assistance will continue to provide it until the stream of litigation for the detainees will run out on March 26.
What is in the rest
March 26 is an important day for us, which, apparently, will not end at all soon. OVD-Info made many mistakes that were analyzed and, we hope, corrected. We have already changed a lot in our work and became stronger, but this is only the beginning.
Excuse me if you let you down in some way !
And take care of yourself.
You can support us here .
Always yours, the team of ATD-info