The organizers of the "Glasnity rally" intend to achieve its implementation on Pushkinskaya Square

The purpose of the rally is to “attract the attention of society and the authorities to the need” to protect freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. ” The organizers - the Moscow Helsinki group, the Memorial human rights center, Amnesty International, the Civil Promotion Committee and the Movement for Human Rights - submitted a notification on December 22 of the Glasses Raying on Pushkin Square in Moscow. On December 12, the applicants received a response from the Moscow Department of Regional Security and Countering Corruption: it will not be possible to conduct a rally on Pushkinskaya Square, since on the same day another event is planned. Which - the official of the department did not indicate. Instead of Pushkinskaya Square, human rights activists were advised to go to Sokolniki Park.

The organizers of the “rally of publicity” did not agree with the proposal and are going to insist that the event take place precisely on Pushkinskaya Square.

According to one of the applicants of the event, the executive director of the Moscow Helsinki group Svetlana Astrakantseva, three components are important for the organizers: date, place and theme.

The idea of ​​holding a “publicity rally” arose, in particular, as a response to the arrest of the head of the “For Human Rights” movement Lev Ponomarev: the court decided to arrest him for 25 days (later the term was reduced to 16) for the call to come to an inconsistent campaign in support of the accused in the affairs of the “new greatness” and “network”. “In our opinion, Lev Aleksandrovich is sitting for an attempt to protect freedom and freedom of assembly, so we planned a rally the day after his release,” says Astrakhantseva.

The place itself is of particular importance for human rights defenders due to the fact that 53 years ago, December 5, 1965, the first “publicity rally” was held on Pushkinskaya Square, the ideologist of which was the mathematician Alexander Yesenin-Volpin , one of the leaders of the dissident movement in the USSR. (On the 50th anniversary of the rally of the OTD-Info, he published a letter from Yesenin-Volpin about the problem of freedom of assembly in the country.)

Currently, the organizers of the rally submitted to the city hall an offer to coordinate the venue of the rally. “The basis on which we are not allowed to hold an event on Pushkinskaya Square is not clear to us,” says Astrakhantseva. - We were simply told that there is a kind of “other event”. Perhaps only five people will participate in it, and maybe it is as socially significant as our rally in support of the fundamental human rights. We are trying to achieve a dialogue with the Moscow authorities so that they conduct a real procedure for coordination, and not just give a reply without specifics. We wanted to be inviting the organizers of the second event to tripartite negotiations. Maybe we will be able to dilute measures for time or spend them at different points in the area. We act in accordance with Russian and international legal norms. We want to show a personal example how the authorities should act with the coordination of the event. ”

At the same time, human rights activists intend to appeal to the authorities in the Tver District Court of Moscow to agree on a rally. According to the lawyer of the Moscow Helsinki group of Nikolai Caucasian, one of the main claims is that the regional security department did not actually propose the organizers of an alternative place. The Sokolniki Park is a Hyde Park , and according to the law, holding a rally with the number of participants up to one and a half thousand people does not require approval at all (the number of up to a thousand people was indicated in the notification to conduct a “publicity rally” on Pushkinskaya Square). Therefore, such a site cannot be considered as part of the procedure for coordinating the event.

But the idea of ​​human rights activists to hold a rally on Pushkinskaya Square in accordance with the historical tradition and goals of the event can also be an important argument in court. Caucasian refers to the decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Court on June 26, 2018, which states that the public authority is obliged to provide the organizers of the event with a place and time that would ensure the achievement of legitimate goals and corresponded to the socio-political significance of the event. “We believe that it is impossible to achieve the goal of the event elsewhere,” says the lawyer. In addition, in the decision of the European Court of Human Rights on the complaint “Lashmankin and others against Russia” about a violation of the right to conduct various events of 2009-2012, it is said that freedom of assembly includes the right to choose a place, time and form of holding an event, and the authorities of the authorities in this process are a restriction of the right to freedom of assembly, guaranteed by Article 11 of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights.

Despite the fact that recently it has become more and more difficult to coordinate the event in the center of Moscow, the organizers hope that they will be able to achieve the goal. “We believe that in the anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the anniversary year of the Constitution of the Russian Federation The subject of human rights is socially significant and very relevant. We hear a lot of human rights rhetoric in the authorities, many documents are published related to the subject of human rights. The organizers of the event are only human rights activists: we show that there is no policy, only human rights. We see our allies in the Moscow authorities. We turn to the historical origins, then the human rights movement began. In our opinion, it would be nice to find support from Moscow, ”emphasizes Svetlana Astrakhantseva.

• OVD-Info prepared instructions on how to appeal the refusal to agree on the event.