The court upheld the claim against the activist for a Facebook post about his arrest and injuries.

The Lefortovsky District Court of Moscow satisfied the claim of the Yuzhnoportovy Department of Internal Affairs against an activist who spoke on Facebook about the unjustified detention and use of force in the police department. This case is being handled by OVD-Info lawyer Ekaterina Selezneva.

In May 2017, the activist was detained during a meeting of residents dedicated to the renovation program. As a witness of the detention reported, the police tried to take away the phone from the man, he hid it in the back pocket of his trousers and sat on the floor. Then the two policemen started very hard, obviously with the intention of hurting him, wringing his hands behind his back. Hematomas remained on the body of the activist. The man posted on Facebook about the incident.

After the news was published on OVD-Info, the Moscow Police Department of Internal Security for the South-Eastern District began an investigation. During the inspection, the police gave explanations that they acted within the law. All witnesses to what was happening, as they say in the materials of the audit (available at the disposal of OVD-Info), could not be interviewed. The CSS concluded that the police did not exceed their powers.

Then the management of the Yuzhnoportovy police department filed a lawsuit against the activist. The department requires the man to delete the post on Facebook and publish a refutation “in the same font” as on Facebook, at his own expense in Rossiyskaya Gazeta. An interlocutor of OVD-Info in Rossiyskaya Gazeta said that their publication does not have the practice of publishing retractions of posts from social networks, but, theoretically, this can be done through the advertising department.

We talked about this case in a separate article.