Translated material
The prosecutor's office asks to sentence the Chelyabinsk anarchists to six years in prison
There was a debate on the case of Dmitry Tsibukovsky and Anastasia Safonova.
On August 30, 2021, during the debate on the case of the anarchist spouses Dmitry Tsibukovsky and Anastasia Safonova in the Central District Court of Chelyabinsk, the prosecutor asked to appoint both activists to six years in a penal colony; This was reported by the lawyers of the International Human Rights Group "Agora" Andrei and Olga Lepekhins.
Recall that Tsibukovskiy and Safonova are accused of hooliganism committed by a group of persons by prior agreement with the use of weapons, motivated by political hatred and enmity (part 2 of article 213 of the Criminal Code) and vandalism for the same motive (part 2 of article 214 of the Criminal Code).
The accusation of hooliganism is connected with the action that the anarchists held on the night of February 14-15, 2018: they hung a banner with the inscription "FSB is the main terrorist" on the fence of the Chelyabinsk UFSB, and also threw a flare over the fence. The action was captured on video, which was posted to the People's Self-Defense community on VKontakte. Initially, the case was initiated under Part 1 of Art. 213 of the Criminal Code (hooliganism committed motivated by political hatred and enmity). On February 19, 2018, Tsibukovsky, Safonova, Dmitry Semenov, his cousin Maxim Anfalov and a friend named Maxim were detained by the FSB. Tsibukovsky and Anfalov later said that they were tortured, while Tsibukovsky confessed to organizing the action. Tsibukovskiy, Semyonov and Safonova became suspects in the case. It followed from the materials of the case that Tsibukovsky's criminal intent arose in February 2018, when he from the People's Self-Defense community learned about the week of solidarity with the repressed anarchists and saw there a stencil with the slogan "FSB is the main terrorist"; Tsibukovskiy conspired with Safonova and Semyonov (whose current whereabouts are unknown), and together they hung a banner on the fence to disrupt public order, express dislike for society, and cause reputational damage to the FSB. At the same time, the investigation believed that these actions were committed with the use of weapons (that is, a flare thrown on the snow). It should be noted that the case was dismissed twice for lack of corpus delicti.
In November 2018, Tsibukovsky and Safonova were detained in a case of vandalism in connection with drawings and the inscription "Our poverty is their profit. Pension reform" on a transformer box and a change house, but they were not charged; then both cases were combined into one proceeding.
On April 16, 2020, Tsibukovskiy and Safonova, unaware of the next resumption of the investigation, were detained in Tula, taken to Chelyabinsk and taken into custody . In July, they were transferred from the pre-trial detention center to house arrest, and in November it was replaced with a ban on certain actions.
From our point of view, although Tsibukovskiy and Safonova were guided by political motives, the qualification of their actions under Art. 213 of the Criminal Code is incorrect. The banner was placed on the fence late at night, without witnesses, and, as far as we can judge, the actions of the anarchists did not violate the working and rest conditions of citizens, the work of institutions, etc., that is, they did not lead to a gross violation of public order. It is unlikely that they were guided by the intent aimed at expressing disrespect for society: the purpose of the action was, on the contrary, to draw the attention of society to an important, from their point of view, socio-political issue. In addition, it is not clear to us why the investigation regards a flare thrown into the snow as a weapon.
As for the accusations of vandalism for drawings and an inscription about pension reform, it is not clear to us what exactly law enforcement agencies saw in this case as manifestations of hatred. We also note that we generally doubt the legitimacy of the existence of a motive for political and ideological hatred or enmity in the article on vandalism (our position is described in more detail here ). In addition, Art. 214 of the Criminal Code is often used in cases where damage to property is not too serious. We believe that in many cases, when it is impossible to dismiss the vandalism case for insignificance, it would be appropriate to confine ourselves to administrative prosecution, for which it would be possible to introduce an article similar to Art. 7.17 of the Code of Administrative Offenses on the destruction or damage of other people's property, or clarify this article itself by including vandalism that did not cause major damage.
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