In Rostov-on-Don, three Navalny supporters were fined for wearing badges and taking photographs.

On July 12, the Leninsky District Court in Rostov-on-Don recognized three supporters of Alexei Navalny as participants in an uncoordinated picket, Open Russia reports.

The activist of the Open Russia movement Fyodor Laptev and the coordinator of the local headquarters of Navalny Elena Kulikova were fined 20 thousand rubles by the court under part 5 of Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (violation by the participant of the procedure for holding a public event). Volunteer Anastasia Daineko was sentenced to 20 hours of community service.

As part of the #YazNavalny action on July 18, Elena Kulikova stood with a single picket in Gorky Park. She was holding a poster in her hand. Fyodor Laptev and Anastasia Daineko were filming it on their phones when employees of the local Center for Combating Extremism approached them. Seeing “Navalny 20!8” badges on the volunteers standing aside, they decided to qualify the single picket as a mass picket, according to a press release from Navalny’s local team. All three were taken to the department and protocols were drawn up. “I wrote that I didn’t agree with the protocol, there were mistakes – they decided that my name would be better as ‘Phaedrus’,” activist Laptev said.

Navalny's headquarters volunteer Fyodor Laptev is an unemployed disabled person of the third group. The relevant documents were submitted to the court. Laptev's pension is four thousand rubles. “Due to the lack of testosterone, my bones are crumbling badly, I need constant hormone therapy. One ampoule costs, if the pharmacy sells at a discount, 6,500 rubles. The standard is 7,500 thousand,” the activist explained. He also said that Judge Lepetiukh denied a request to watch the video that the activists had filmed and asked Urusov, an employee of Center E, leading questions.