“Kommersant-Ufa”: a participant in the June 12 rally who called corrupt officials “traitors” was accused of calling for extremism

In Bashkortostan, a criminal case has been opened for calls for extremism (Article 280 of the Criminal Code) against participant in the anti-corruption rally Rustem Milyukov, writes Kommersant-Ufa, without specifying its sources.

According to the publication, the investigation believes that at a rally against corruption that took place on June 12 near the Chemists' Palace of Culture in Ufa, Milyukov called for illegal actions against officials. The charges are based on a video recording from a rally in which an activist can be heard calling corrupt officials “traitors who rob you and me” and calling on them to be “imprisoned” and “shot.”

As Kommersant writes, witnesses in the case are the organizers of the action - the head of the local headquarters of Alexei Navalny, Liliya Chanysheva, and lawyer Kirill Matveev.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs has not yet commented on the progress of the investigation, the publication notes.

Chanysheva told Ekho Moskvy in Ufa that she did not know in what case she was interrogated: “They asked about the rally on June 12, asked general questions: when was the rally, how long did it last, how many people came, how many spoke, that I was there did. They basically asked about everyone, everyone who was there.”

As the publication notes, Rustem Milyukov is a member of the Yabloko party; he is known in Ufa as an active observer of the September 2016 elections. He alleged stuffing and falsification during voting and tried to have criminal cases initiated, but was only able to achieve disciplinary sanctions against election commission workers.