Evening Medusa

The court actually banned FBK from working. Why protesters are beaten in St. Petersburg and fighting anime. Mortality in Russia in 2020 increased by almost 18%

Good evening,

this is Meduza's daily newsletter about the important news of the day, where we now also have to write that the Ministry of Justice has declared us a foreign agent. But we try to find something good in the news. Sometimes it works: watch a dog from São Paulo who took advantage of the red light to be petted by a moped courier . In the end, it's good for everyone!

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Pulse

The main thing for the day - point by point

• The police came to the correspondents of Dozhd, Komsomolskaya Pravda and Ekho Moskvy , who were working on the rally in support of Alexei Navalny on April 21. And later - to the special correspondent of Meduza Kristina Safonova .
• The Moscow City Court restricted the work of the FBK (recognized as a "foreign agent" in Russia). The Foundation is prohibited, in particular, from publishing materials on the Internet and organizing rallies.
• Russian schools were sent on vacation from May 1 to May 10.
• The prosecutor requested from 7 to 16 years in prison for former police officers who planted drugs on Ivan Golunov.
• The Chinese media have been banned from writing about the Oscar victory of Nomadland director Chloe Zhao.
• Actor Kakhi Kavsadze , who played Abdullah in The White Sun of the Desert, has died.

Texts of the day

Why did the police in St. Petersburg behave much more harshly at the rally for Alexei Navalny than in Moscow?

On April 21, during actions of solidarity with Navalny throughout Russia, almost two thousand people were detained. More than 800 of them are in St. Petersburg. Here, the security forces beat the protesters with batons and electric shockers - and continued to beat them already in the police departments. Meduza’s interlocutors explain the actions of the police by the upcoming elections to the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg and the State Duma and the “settlement to prevent unrest” emanating from Moscow. It is possible that the head of the administration of St. Petersburg, Valery Pikalev , known as the "guard of Putin's dacha" in Valdai, is responsible for police brutality.

At the rally in Moscow, the police almost did not detain anyone. But immediately after the action, she came to activists and journalists

It looks like security cameras helped the security forces. And it seems that this is their new tactic, which they managed to test in other cities . It is likely that the security forces began to act this way after the winter actions in support of Navalny: then, due to mass detentions, special detention centers for administrative detainees were overloaded. In addition, a month before the April 21 rally in Moscow, a key security official responsible for organizing police work at mass events was replaced. They became the former deputy head of the Moscow traffic police Alexei Diokin. However, he does not make decisions on his own: he is assisted by the headquarters, which includes representatives of the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Russian Guard, the mayor's office, as well as the department for protecting the constitutional order of the FSB.

The court began to consider a lawsuit to recognize Navalny's structures as extremist organizations. The decision has not yet been made, but they have actually been banned from work

The day before, the Moscow prosecutor suspended the activities of the politician's regional headquarters. They are prohibited from holding rallies, posting materials on the Internet, participating in elections and referendums, and using bank accounts, except for the payment of fines, taxes and fees. Navalny's team considers such a decision illegal . In particular, because the prosecutor's office calls the headquarters a single social movement, which does not exist. Politician's headquarters all over Russia stopped their work. According to the director of the FBK (recognized as a "foreign agent" in Russia) Ivan Zhdanov, today's decision of the Moscow City Court to limit the work of the fund "will not affect anything."

How and why Petersburg went to war on anime and manga

For almost half a year now, “anime trials” have been going on in St. Petersburg courts: the prosecutor’s office demands to block Death Note, Elven Song and other anime. The accusation is based on the fact that anime and manga allegedly “encourage children to commit suicidal acts” and even “blur” the boundaries between the sexes, which allegedly can make a child homosexual. We talked to an anthropologist, a Japanese scholar, a psychotherapist and even a psychologist who spoke in court about how St. Petersburg became the center of the fight against anime and manga .

The coronavirus

Today in a nutshell:

• According to the Ministry of Health, mortality in Russia in 2020 increased by almost 18% , while life expectancy decreased by 1.84 years.
• Singapore has displaced New Zealand from the top spot in the ranking of countries that are best coping with the pandemic. Russia is in 22nd place out of 53.
• In St. Petersburg, . the artist Maria Kasyanenko, the widow of the author of the monument to the doctors who died from covid, committed suicide He himself died of covid last May.
• The Association of Tour Operators has asked to cancel testing for covid for vaccinated Russians who are returning from abroad.

Podcast "What Happened"

How enlighteners will behave after the adoption of the law on educational activities (spoiler: they will violate)

Due to new amendments, it is no longer possible to give a lecture or hold a seminar and master class without drawing up a special contract. The bill was still at the stage of consideration in the State Duma and was criticized by popularizers of science, but their campaign did not lead to anything. The director of the educational project "Laba" Yevgeny Nasyrov said that he would not comply with the requirements of the new law. He is the guest of the new episode of the podcast. Together with Nasyrov, we discuss how he and his project plan to evade restrictions and why the format of unofficial educational apartment houses seems to be the most preferable for him now.

Listen to What Happened on Meduza . And subscribe to Apple Podcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Yandex.Music and other podcast services.

Find of the day

A history textbook that Vladimir Putin did not like so much was discovered

During his address to the Federal Assembly, Putin said that in some school textbooks "it is written as if not about us." For example, in one of the history textbooks, according to the President, “nothing is said” about the Battle of Stalingrad. The Ministry of Education found out that Putin was talking about the textbook "History of Russia and the World" for the 11th grade, edited by Oleg Volobuev. But this textbook is not taught in schools: it is used only in colleges.

Outrageous, but there is nothing about the Battle of Stalingrad in this mailing list either! Your Medusa