STOP GOK activist was finally charged with hooliganism

In Chelyabinsk, the police brought a final charge against 43-year-old activist of the STOP GOK environmental movement Gamil Asatullin. According to law enforcement officers, Asatullin is guilty of hooliganism and “preparing for the deliberate destruction of property for hooligan reasons by arson.” Information about this was received from the lawyer of the International Human Rights Group Agora Andrey Lepekhin.

Earlier, the media reported that on September 11, a man was detained while trying to set fire to the site of a mining and processing plant being built near the village of Tominsky in the Chelyabinsk region (according to security officials, he was trying to set fire to wood stacked at the construction site). A criminal case was opened .

Currently, security forces qualify Asatullin’s actions as hooliganism committed as part of a group of persons “by prior conspiracy based on ideological hatred” (Part 2 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code), and preparation for the deliberate destruction of property for hooligan reasons (Part 3 of Article 30 Part 2 of Article 167 of the Criminal Code).

As Lepekhin points out, the text of the accusation states that the activities of STOP GOK are aimed at “countering government agencies.”

“In turn, we filed a request to interrogate Vladimir Putin - we want to understand why he then supported this activity in a conversation with civil activist Vasily Moskovets,” the defender emphasizes. Earlier, activists reported that a telephone conversation took place between one of the leaders of the movement, Vasily Moskovets, and the country’s President Vladimir Putin, during which the head of state supported the opponents of construction in their struggle, noting that “you are doing the right thing by fighting for what you think is right.” .

Asatullin was taken into custody after his arrest in September. Soon he informed his lawyer that, under pressure from employees of the Center for Combating Extremism, he was forced to refuse his services, and also to slander Vasily Moskovets as if he was the initiator of the arson. On February 6, he was transferred to house arrest.

Soon after Asatullin’s arrest, another suspect, Evgeny Medvedev, was detained, who confessed, after which he was released on his own recognizance. Representatives of the movement consider him a provocateur.

The Chelyabinsk STOP GOK movement is fighting against the construction of a mining and processing plant by the Russian Copper Company (RMC) on the site of the Tominsky porphyry copper ore deposit. The construction of the plant, as activists are convinced, is fraught with air, soil and water pollution, and can also lead to the destruction of houses and the drying up of drinking water wells for many kilometers around the plant.

The confrontation between the RMK company and local residents has been going on for more than a year, and the “STOP GOK” movement arose after the first public hearings on plans for the construction of the plant, held in December 2013. In September 2017, the Human Rights Council under the President recommended that government agencies suspend the license and not issue a construction permit related to the Tominsky GOK, as well as conduct a prosecutorial review into the legality of actions related to the construction project. After this, the pressure on movement activists increased.