Police in Yaroslavl filed a lawsuit against the former head of Navalny's local headquarters

The Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Yaroslavl region filed a lawsuit in the Dzerzhinsky District Court of Yaroslavl against the former head of Navalny’s local headquarters, Elena Lekiashvili. The girl herself told OVD-Info about this.

In the lawsuit, the security forces demanded to recover compensation from Lekiashvili in connection with the work of Interior Ministry employees during the dispersal of the “Free Alexei Navalny!” protest. January 23. The applicant refers to the decision of the district court, according to which the former head of headquarters was found guilty under the article on organizing an uncoordinated action (Part 2 of Article 20.2 of the Administrative Code) due to the protest on January 23.

Following this decision, a representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs called Lekiashvili in the lawsuit “the organizer of an uncoordinated event” and demanded to recover 495,415 rubles 15 kopecks from her. The security forces explained this amount by the need to involve police officers, who had that day off work, in dispersing the peaceful protest. Attached to the lawsuit was a complete list of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Yaroslavl Region, indicating salaries and clarifying who exactly worked on their day off in connection with the protest on January 23. From these documents it follows that at least 13 employees of the Center for Combating Extremism sacrificed hours of rest on January 23 and in the days following the protest. The lawsuit does not specify why the Ministry of Internal Affairs needed to use the force of workers in such numbers, taking into account the peaceful nature of the action.

• After the arrest of politician Alexei Navalny, a series of protests took place throughout Russia; mass rallies took place on Saturday, January 23, Sunday, January 31, and February 2 (the day Navalny’s suspended sentence was replaced with a real one). The security forces reacted harshly to the protests: on January 23, more than 4,000 people were detained, on January 31, more than 5,500 , and on February 2 , more than 1,400 people .
• In connection with the rallies in support of Alexei Navalny, which took place from January 23 to February 2, at least 90 criminal cases were opened across the country. Protest participants were accused of using violence against security forces (Article 318 of the Criminal Code), violating sanitary and epidemiological rules (Part 1 of Article 236 of the Criminal Code), involving minors in illegal activities (Part 2 of Article 151.2 of the Criminal Code), blocking roads (Article 267 CC). The totality of these cases is called the “palace case,” since one of the catalysts for the protests was the FBK investigative film “ Palace for Putin. The story of the biggest bribe ."