A 74-year-old human rights activist who opposed the construction of a Chinese town was beaten in Omsk

In Omsk, 74-year-old human rights activist Valentin Kuznetsov, who opposed the construction of a Chinese town, was beaten. It is reported by MBH Media.

On November 3, Kuznetsov arrived in the village of Omsky to film the territory of the town under construction from a quadrocopter. When the human rights activist and the cameraman who helped him were about to leave, Oleg Kardonis, a district police officer and the "representative of the owner" of the STG-Group company, drove up to them. The policeman asked Kuznetsov to show his ID. “I went to the car to take my passport, but at that moment Kardonis rushed across me, intending to grab me,” Valentin Kuznetsov told the publication.

The human rights activist tried to run away from his pursuer, but three men in civilian clothes blocked his way. Kuznetsov believes that these were employees of the private security company who were called by Kardonis.

“Just like in action films they wring their hands, they also twisted me, “put” my face into the asphalt, pulled the belt off my trousers, tied me up. Then they kicked me several times in the legs and in the side, hit me on the head and pushed me into a white foreign car, where they kept me for more than four hours,” the human rights activist says.

Kuznetsov became ill in the car, he began to vomit. The men who detained him paid no attention to this, and when the human rights activist tried to explain that their actions were illegal, he was threatened with being taken to the forest and raped with a crowbar:

What are you doing here? We'll take you to the forest, stick a crowbar in one place, and you'll tell me everything at once.

Kuznetsov's phone was taken away and all data was deleted from it, including contacts, photos, applications and video that Kuznetsov filmed at the time of communication with the district police officer and Kardonis.

Through the window of the car, Kuznetsov saw that three more police cars had arrived at the scene. When the human rights activist was released, the police tried to take an explanation from him about how he ran away from the policeman, but the man refused.

While Kuznetsov was in the car, Kardonis tried to take away from the operator a memory card with aerial footage of a Chinese town. But he failed to do this, since Kuznetsov had her.

Valentin Kuznetsov is preparing a statement to the police on the fact of his illegal capture and retention by unknown persons. Activists from Omsk are trying to get the issue of building a Chinese town to be put to a referendum.

• In early October, residents of Omsk learned that they were going to build a town for 3.5 thousand shift workers from China next to the village. On October 28, the residents of the village went to a rally against the construction. They found out that the plots given over to the Chinese town were not transferred from the category of agricultural land, so construction work on this site is illegal. Activists suspect that despite this, construction is already underway. In October, bulldozers and excavators arrived at the site, and the territory was fenced off.