Such a week. Issue No. 1

Hello, dear readers of OVD-Info ! Our editors care about you and tell you what important things happened this week in the field of political persecution in Russia (and sometimes how to survive and protect yourself in the midst of it).
We decided to experiment a little and slightly change the format of the newsletter, so if you are missing something and have any comments or suggestions, send them by Tuesday to [email protected] with the subject line “newsletter.”

Last week ended with the all-Russian protest action #Tired, about which you can read about the arrests here . In St. Petersburg, human rights activist Dinar Idrisov was particularly brutally detained at police department No. 22, where he came to represent the interests of those detained at the rally. Idrisov was thrown to the floor and handcuffed. He spent the night at the department, and the next night in court, where his administrative case of disobedience to the legal demands of police officers was heard. On May 2, the court, in Idrisov’s absence, fined him a thousand rubles. Everything that happened to the human rights activist is described here in detail.

The authorities and employees of educational institutions continue to put pressure on young participants in protests. A #Tired participant was forced to write an explanatory note at school and was threatened with being registered; in Samara, lyceum studentswere sent to a school psychologist after a conversation about Navalny. Sometimes the pressure turns out to be quite serious - a schoolchild who wrote a comment about Navalny’s action was approached by Center “E”, and in Kaliningrad a student of the cadet corps was expelled for participating in the #Tired protest (Meduza wrote about this in more detail). In the Kaluga region, the Ministry of Education talked about the lists of participants in rallies, “which will interfere with life in the future.”

There were also attacks on activists: the moderator of the group “Muscovites against demolition” was beaten by four unknown people, and a lecturer from the “School of Investigative Journalism” was attacked . Some attackers used a chemical solution or their favorite green paint . Alexei Navalny, who was attacked last week, was the least fortunate of all - he was splashed with brilliant green mixed with another liquid; there is a possibility that the politician’s eye will not recover from the burn. The police opened a criminal case after the attack on the politician. By the way, the court recognized the Kirovles verdict against Navalny and Ofitserov as legal, and this seriously reduces Navalny’s chances of participating in the elections. We also looked into who SERB activists are (they probably attacked Navalny).

The prosecution is asking blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky to be imprisoned for 3.5 years. He is accused of insulting the feelings of believers, extremism and illegal use of special equipment (a pen with a video camera). The persecution of the blogger began after he posted a video online of him catching Pokemon in a temple. On May 11, the court will pronounce a verdict in his case.

But this week a very joyful event also happened - anti-fascist Alexey Sutuga was released from a colony in Angarsk on Thursday. Hooray! On this occasion, the history of the Sutuga case was described in detail.

View/read

The Investigative Committee has completed investigative actions against three defendants in the March 26 Case, and the case of Yuri Kuliy has already been sent to court. OVD-Info spoke with friends of Alexander Shpakov, one of the defendants in this case, who, according to investigators, struck a policeman several times.

The defendant in the Bolotnaya case, Ivan Nepomnyashchikh, was never released from the punishment cell, where he ended up after being beaten by colony officers. On April 28, the ECHR ordered Russia to report on the investigation into the beatings in the colony where Nepomnyashchikh is imprisoned, but IK-1 in Yaroslavl is in no hurry to fulfill these obligations. Nepomniachtchi defender Sergei Sharov-Delone talks about this.

The promotion group Arma17, which organized music parties and festivals, including the Outline electronic music festival, announced the cessation of its activities in Russia. We have restored the details and chronicle of the pressure on the group.

Such a week!

We are happy when you support us! You can help OVD-Info here . Thank you!

Our newsletter now has an English version, which can be read on openDemocracy.