STOP GOK activist released under house arrest

On February 6, the Central District Court of Chelyabinsk did not extend the arrest of Gamil Asatullin, an activist of the STOP GOK environmental movement, accused of hooliganism. He was released from pre-trial detention center under house arrest. The lawyer of the Agora International Human Rights Group, Andrei Lepekhin, wrote about this on Facebook.

Asatullin was arrested in September 2017 on charges of attempting to arson property located on the territory of a mining and processing plant near Chelyabinsk. A case was opened against the activist under the article of hooliganism committed “based on political and ideological hatred” - part 2 of article 213 of the Criminal Code. His comrades claim that the case was the result of provocation. According to them, shortly before Asatullin was accused of attempted arson, some “sympathizers in the security forces” warned them that there was a plan to “make extremists” of the most active participants in the movement.

In September, Asatullin told his lawyer that, under pressure from employees of the Center for Combating Extremism, he was forced to refuse his services, and also to slander one of the leaders of the “Stop GOK” movement, Vasily Moskovets, as if he was the initiator of the arson.

• The confrontation between the authorities of the Chelyabinsk region and local residents is due to the construction of a mining and processing plant (GOK). Previously, particularly active opponents of the construction conflicted primarily with security guards and aggressive young men, who, apparently, were hired by the Russian Copper Company (RMK) involved in the construction. The authorities are preventing rallies against the mining and processing plant and are filing cases against activists.

OVD-Info talked about this conflict.