News digest for August 30

While courts are rubber-stamping verdicts in politically motivated cases, opposition activists continue to leave Russia. Read about what August 30 will be remembered in the OVD-Info digest.

• The court sentenced the person involved in the “sanitary case”, municipal deputy Dmitry Baranovsky, to one and a half years of restriction of freedom. The politician was found guilty under the article of incitement to violate sanitary and epidemiological standards (Part 1 of Article 236 of the Criminal Code with the use of Part 4 of Article 33 of the Criminal Code) in connection with the January 23 rally in support of Alexei Navalny.
• Media reports that Navalny's press secretary Kira Yarmysh left Russia. Previously, she was sentenced to one and a half years of restriction of freedom as part of a “sanitary case.” The defense appealed the court's decision, so the verdict has not yet entered into force.
• The prosecution asks that spouses Dmitry Tsibukovsky and Anastasia Safonova, defendants in the case of the banner “FSB is the main terrorist” in Chelyabinsk, be sentenced to six years in prison. They are charged with articles of vandalism and hooliganism motivated by political hostility.
• The defendant in the “palace case,” Eldar Garipov, who was beaten by security forces at a rally on January 31 in St. Petersburg, had his term in a pre-trial detention center extended . The man is accused of using violence against a National Guard member at a rally in support of Navalny.
• In Khabarovsk, during the trial of Alexei Vorsin, the ex-coordinator of Navalny’s local headquarters, a prosecution witness spoke out in support of the opposition activist. “I was not harmed by the protesters, I was harmed by the actions of law enforcement agencies and the court!” - he said at the meeting.
• The Ministry of Internal Affairs has declared the stay in Russia of comedian Idrak Mirzalizade, who was serving an arrest for a joke about xenophobia, undesirable for life. If he does not leave the country on his own soon, he will have to be deported.
• Bailiffs from the Moscow region included the website of the Readovka publication in the register of prohibited sites. The restriction of access occurred due to a lawsuit by United Russia member Dmitry Sablin - earlier, journalists published an investigation about his yacht.
• The court dismissed the administrative case of a Moscow resident who was accused of participating in an uncoordinated action due to the rally on April 21. Her interests were represented by lawyers from OVD-Info Yuri Bredelev and Demyan Ivkin.