A year after the “He is not our king” campaign, the accused appeared in Chelyabinsk. The main thing about the matter

The rally of supporters of Alexei Navalny “He is not our king” took place on May 5, 2018. About 1,600 people were then detained throughout Russia, 185 in Chelyabinsk, and in the same month a criminal case was opened against unidentified participants in the rally. A year later, in July 2019, the accused appeared - Oksana Eremina and Yuri Vashurin. OVD-Info tells what is known about the case.

A criminal case was opened six days after the protest, on May 11. The rally participants, unidentified at that time, were suspected of committing hooliganism in a group of persons by prior conspiracy (Part 2 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code). Because of what specific actions, it was not known then.

Searches in the criminal case began at the end of May 2018. According to the acting Alexey Mezyaev, coordinator of Navalny’s headquarters in Chelyabinsk, they were held with ten activists. Their computers and phones were confiscated . The search warrant stated that “unidentified persons of more than 10 people <...> grossly violated public order, expressing clear disrespect for society, acting on the grounds of political hatred and enmity.”

After searches, a suspect appeared in the case - Boris Zolotarevsky. At that time, he was the coordinator of Navalny’s headquarters in Chelyabinsk. Zolotarevsky was preventively detained before the “He is not our king” rally, and he was unable to take part in it. Despite this, he became a defendant in the case. At the moment, no charges have been brought against Zolotarevsky.

On May 30, 2019, the first accused, Oksana Eremina, appeared in the criminal case. She was detained during the “He is not our king” protest in Chelyabinsk. This happened after Eremina’s controversy with the police who detained the elderly woman. On July 3, 2018, Eremina was found guilty of violating the rules of participation in the action (Part 5 of Article 20.2 of the Administrative Code) and was sentenced to 20 hours of compulsory labor.

On July 30, 2018, police came to the apartment where Eremina lives with her husband Ivan (at that time they had not yet signed their signatures) and searched her. “They broke in at seven o’clock in the morning. I asked them for a trifle - to leave the room so that I could dress Vanya and put him in the stroller. Because he can't do it himself. They didn’t want to go out,” says Eremina. During the search, the police seized Ivan’s computer, Eremina’s pink coat and handbag - these things were on her during the “He is not our king” protest. A month later, the police returned these items.

When Eremina was taken to the department, she told the police that she could not leave her roommate because he had a disability of the first group. To this the police responded: “Well, you once went to a rally.” Eremina noticed that that day Ivan was in Volgograd at a chess tournament. The police advised her partner to go somewhere else.

At the department where she was taken after the search, Eremina gave evidence without using Article 51 of the Constitution (which allows you not to testify against yourself and your loved ones). Now Eremina has an assigned lawyer, whose work the accused is dissatisfied with. Instead of this defender, lawyer Andrei Lepekhin, who deals with political criminal cases, is trying to enter the case.

Eremina is accused of breaking the police cordon along with other protesters. The investigation considers this action to be hooliganism committed by a group of people. The decision to charge her as a defendant states that Eremina committed her actions based on political hatred and enmity, and also allegedly resisted a government official.

A confrontation took place between Eremina and one of the policemen standing in the cordon. He claimed that Eremina was in front of all the protesters and called for breaking the cordon. But during the lawyer’s questioning, it turned out that the policeman was standing far from Eremina and was not entirely sure that it was her.

The woman believes that she became accused because of photographs from the protest . According to Eremina, it is quite easy to find her in the pictures because she came in a pink coat. Also, one of the reasons, according to Eremina, could have been an altercation with the police after the arrest of an elderly woman. Eremina associates the fact that she has only now been charged with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, which is to be held in Chelyabinsk in 2020. In her opinion, the authorities are trying to intimidate activists and prevent protests during the summit.

In July 2019, charges were also brought against Yuri Vashurin , a young man born in 1994. A year ago, his place, like Eremina’s, was searched. The indictment (available to OVD-Info) states that Vashurin participated in breaking the cordon. In 2018, Vashurin was interrogated several times as a witness and suspect, and charges were brought on July 10.

“There's a half-truth there. Indeed, I was at the rally, I found myself in that row that was making its way through the cordon. But it says that I had intent - although I realized that I was breaking through the cordon when this had already begun to happen,” he says.

According to Vashurin, he was accused because he had already been “exposed” to Center “E”. The young man said that in 2016 he participated in a certain “political circle”, one of whose members was found with marijuana and a grenade. He was imprisoned for 11 years, and other members of the circle were initially suspects, but then became witnesses. The circle broke up.

There were two more suspects in the criminal case - I. Tyshchenko and Mikhail Takhirov. They are absent from the indictment against Vashurin. In this document - the most recent one in this criminal case - only Eremina, Vashurin and unidentified participants in the demonstration are mentioned. Both Eremina and Vashurin are under recognizance not to leave.