In Moscow, a coordinated rally “Society Demands Justice” against police brutality and political repression was held on Sakharov Avenue. Its participants demanded an end to the criminal cases of “New Greatness”, “Network”, activist Anastasia Shevchenko and many other activists.

According to White Counter, 3,900 people took part in the action. The Ministry of Internal Affairs estimated the number of participants to be half that. The OVD-info project wrote that activists with posters in support of those detained on Shies and against the removal of garbage from Moscow to other regions were not allowed through the frames. There were no arrests at the rally itself. Several people were detained after the official end of the protest.

The rally was organized by the Independent Union of Journalists and the Libertarian Party. The reason for its holding was the case of Meduza correspondent Ivan Golunov. The charges against the journalists were dropped, but those responsible for fabricating the case are still at large, the organizers noted. In addition, the persecution of other journalists and activists continues.

Protests against police brutality and for freedom of speech took place on Sunday in other Russian cities. Thus, in Vladivostok, about 30 people went to pickets, they collected signatures under an appeal to the chairman of the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General to conduct a thorough investigation into the Golunov case, the journalists’ union reported. Pickets also took place in Khabarovsk, Novokuznetsk, Omsk, Saratov, and Kaliningrad. About 200 people, according to the unregistered Libertarian Party, attended a rally in Nizhny Novgorod.

In St. Petersburg, the authorities did not approve the holding of the action. On this day, the city hosts the Scarlet Sails school leavers festival. The Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region promised to strictly suppress violations of law and order.

Police detained Golunov in early June. He was charged with attempted drug trafficking. The journalist said that drugs were planted on him. He was supported by colleagues, public figures, businessmen and politicians. Later, the police dropped the charges against him due to lack of proof of his participation in the crime, and two generals of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were fired.

After Golunov’s release, an unauthorized rally was held in Moscow on June 12 in support of the journalist. their desire to come to the rally in a group created on Facebook At that time, 20,000 people expressed . The Moscow City Hall called on the organizers of the action to discuss the conditions, but they said that they were ready to do this only publicly on the Dozhd TV channel. However, several organizers nevertheless met with representatives of the mayor’s office, but the march on June 12 was not agreed upon. The rally went ahead anyway, and about 530 people were detained, according to the OVD-info project. At the same time, the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that 1,200 people took part in the event, however, according to eyewitnesses, there were several times more. Simultaneously with these events, the mayor's office approved a rally for June 16 on Sakharov Avenue, including the chairmen of the Union of Journalists of Moscow and Russia, Pavel Gusev and Vladimir Solovyov, as its applicants. The action, according to the police, attracted 1,600 participants, but eyewitnesses said that the number of participants was several times less.

A rally was held in Moscow against the fabrication of criminal cases