The court upheld the administrative arrest of the head of the Rostov “Voice”

On September 21, the Rostov Regional Court upheld the 10 days of administrative arrest imposed on the editor-in-chief of the Rostov publication “Golos” Igor Khoroshilov because of a publication with the symbols of “Smart Voting”. This was reported by the publication “Kavkaz.Realii”.

Lawyer Evgeniy Berkovich was able to prove to the court that the violation was not repeated, since at the time Khoroshilov published the Smart Voting symbols, the previous arrest decision had not yet entered into force, but the court did not change the punishment.

Khoroshilov was sentenced to 10 days of arrest under the article on the demonstration of extremist symbols (Part 1 of Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code) two times in a row - on September 10 and 20 . The first time he was accused of publishing a post on Facebook with the symbols of “Smart Voting”, and the second time of duplicating this post in order to tell readers what he was charged with.

• “Smart Voting” is a project created by Alexei Navalny’s team in 2018. On the official website of the initiative, its mechanism is described as follows: “In each district, Smart Voting selects the most promising competitor to United Russia. Thus, “Smart Voting” helps voters who are unfamiliar with each other to act in solidarity: not to vote discordantly, “spreading” votes among several candidates alternative to United Russia, but to concentrate on supporting one, thereby significantly increasing his chances of winning.”
• The Moscow City Court recognized the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), the Foundation for the Defense of Citizens' Rights (FZPG) and the headquarters of Alexei Navalny as extremist organizations on June 9, 2021. In July, Roskomnadzor blocked almost 50 websites associated with Alexei Navalny. In September, Roskomnadzor blocked the Smart Voting website.