News digest for July 19

Victories of defenders from OVD-Info, fines for Jehovah's Witnesses and extension of preventive measures in politically motivated criminal cases - we talk about the main thing for July 19.

• Yuri Zhdanov, the father of ex-director of the FBK Ivan Zhdanov, had his term in the pre-trial detention center extended by four months. A preventive measure was chosen for him as part of a case under articles of forgery and fraud on an especially large scale.
• Employees of Center “E” conducted a search of the Orenburg blogger Sergei Dobryshkin, who criticized the authorities and covered the persecution of the Yakut shaman Alexander Gabyshev. The reason for the investigative actions was suspicions that Dobryshkin’s videos “may contain calls for extremist activities.”
• The defendant in the “sanitary case” Oleg Navalny was refused to lift the ban on certain actions. He is charged with inciting violation of sanitary and epidemiological rules due to the action on January 23 in support of Alexei Navalny.
• The court in Chelyabinsk extended the preventive measure for anarchists Dmitry Tsibukovsky and Anastasia Safonova for three months. They are accused of vandalism and hooliganism motivated by political hostility due to the fact that in February 2018 they hung a banner “FSB is the main terrorist.”
• The Moscow City Court upheld the ban on certain actions of lawyer Ivan Pavlov, the former head of Team 29, which recently announced its closure. Pavlov is accused of disclosing data from the preliminary investigation.
• Jehovah's Witnesses from the Kirov region Andrey Shchepin, Alexander Shamov and Evgeny Udintsev were found guilty of organizing the activities of an extremist organization. They were given fines of up to 500 thousand rubles.
• The head of the Saratov branch of the Yabloko party, Ksenia Sverdlova, was not allowed into the building of the district election commission, where she came to submit signatures for nomination to the City Duma. The police tried to detain the activist.
• The former director of Open Russia, Andrei Pivovarov, was fined 50 thousand rubles under the law on “foreign agents”. Now the politician is in a pre-trial detention center in the Krasnodar Territory - he is charged with participation in the activities of an “undesirable organization.”
• Courts in Moscow and St. Petersburg dismissed cases brought against participants in protests in support of Alexei Navalny. The interests of the activists were defended by lawyers from OVD-Info Nikita Sorokin and Daria Aksyonova.