Participants of the March 26 protests appealed to the European Court of Human Rights

Representatives of twelve participants in the March 26 rallies sent a statement to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), in which they complained about the violation of the right to be free from torture, the right to personal liberty, a fair trial and the right to freedom of expression. This was reported on the Memorial HRC website.

The complaint was filed on 26 September by twelve applicants from Moscow, the Moscow Region, Bashkiria, Sverdlovsk and Bryansk Regions. Lawyers believe that Russia violated the rights of their clients under the articles of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms: the prohibition of torture (Article 3 of the Convention), the right to liberty and security of person (Article 5 of the Convention), the right to a fair trial (Art. 6 of the Convention), freedom of expression (art. 10 of the Convention) and freedom of assembly and association (art. 11 of the Convention).

The applicants took part in the action on 26 March in Moscow (except Aleksanrd Dyachenko). The rally in support of the politician Alexei Navalny was not approved, and the applicants were detained. During the detention, lawyers point to a lot of procedural violations: the police officers did not introduce themselves and did not wear the obligatory badges. During the arrest, the police did not explain their actions in any way and did not make any demands on the detainees.

At the same time, the protocols of detention indicate that the applicants shouted slogans (only two had posters with them), did not respond to the remarks of the police and allegedly interfered with the traffic.

All detainees were held in unacceptable conditions: they spent from one to five hours in police cars, which were very crowded. There was a lack of food and water in the police departments, some detainees were not taken to the toilet for a long time, and some had nowhere to sleep. In its decisions, the ECtHR recognizes such conditions of detention as torture.

In the course of the trial before the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow the applicants asked to question the policemen who had detained them, almost all such applications were rejected for unknown reasons. Only in two cases did the court agree to review the video of the detention during the process.

All applicants were found guilty, in many cases these decisions were based only on the testimony and reports of the police.

UPD. 16:00 Open Russia reports that five participants of the rally on March 26 filed complaints: Ilya Zaitsev, Nikita Mileshin and Timofey Medvedev, as well as employees of the M-Tek company Ekaterina Kenareva and Vladislav Mosin. Lawyers claim violations of the right to a fair trial and freedom and personal integrity.

On March 26, 2017, the largest protests in recent years took place across Russia. On this day, according to various sources, from 36 to 88 thousand people took to the streets in 97 cities.

In Moscow, 1043 people were detained - more than during the rally on Bolotnaya Square. After the crackdown on March 26, nine people in three cities became defendants in criminal cases. They were charged under Art. 318 - the use of violence against a representative of power.