The Moscow City Court upheld the fine for a picket in support of the head of the Karelian Memorial

The Moscow City Court upheld the decision of the Tverskoy District Court, which fined Aleksey Belenkin 10,000 rubles for picketing outside the General Prosecutor's Office on January 28. This was reported to OVD-Info by Denis Shedov, lawyer of the Memorial Human Rights Center.

A policeman was present at the meeting, who confirmed that Colonel Sergei Nikitin had given the order to detain Belenkin and Sergei Bykovsky during the picketing. Before that, Nikitin measured the distance between the picketers with steps, and, according to him, "it was about 40 ordinary steps, that is, it was less than 50 meters." According to Yandex. Maps”, the distance was 50.9 meters. The court did not consider this fact. The colonel himself was not summoned to the meeting.

Sergei Bykovsky and Alexei Belenkin were detained in January when they held one-man pickets in support of Yury Dmitriev, chairman of the Karelian regional branch of the Memorial society. He is accused of photographing a minor for the production of pornographic materials.

In April, the court found Bykovsky and Belenkin guilty under Part 5 of Art. 20.2 (violation by a participant of the rules for holding a public event) and fined each of them 10 thousand rubles. On September 12, the Moscow City Court approved Bykovsky's fine.