A court in Kalmykia dismissed an administrative case against the organizer of a failed rally

The Elista City Court, for lack of corpus delicti, dismissed the case of human rights activist Semyon Ateev, who was brought to administrative responsibility for allegedly “failing to notify” the authorities of the refusal to hold a rally (part 3 of article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). This is reported by the "Caucasian Knot".

“I was tried today under Article 20.2.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, because I scheduled a rally for December 6 in front of the Elista city administration building. I was accused of not holding a rally and not writing a refusal to hold a rally. I didn’t notify the mayor’s office of Elista that I would not hold a rally, a day before its announced start, ”Ateev quotes the publication.

The human rights activist noted that this situation arose due to inconsistencies in the meetings on appealing against the refusal to approve the rally and on administrative liability for failure to notify the cancellation of the rally.

“I intended to hold it [the rally - OVD-Info ], but I was refused approval. And I appealed the mayor's office's response in court: consideration of my application demanding that the actions of the city administration be declared illegal and the refusal to approve the rally took place on December 5 in the Elista city court and ended at 20:00, and the rally was planned for December 6. In the morning, I filed an appeal with the Supreme Court: it was supposed to consider my complaint on the same day, before the rally, but did not do this and scheduled the hearing for December 17, ”said Semyon Ateev.

Earlier, Semyon Ateev had already been fined for “failure to notify” the authorities about the November 18 rally.

• On January 17, the Elista City Court fined two participants in one of the protests against the appointment of Acting Mayor Dmitry Trapeznikov. The case against one of them was already closed , however, after a complaint from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the case was returned for a new trial and the protester was found guilty.
• On December 13, the Elista City Court also fined two pensioners 10,000 rubles for participating in the action on October 27. Then the court ignored the arguments of the defense that the rally had been approved.
• At the end of September, at the suggestion of the head of Kalmykia, Batu Khasikov Trapeznikov, the former head of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), was appointed head of the Elista administration. After that, several gatherings took place in the city demanding to remove him from office.