The Investigative Committee refused to initiate a criminal case against the police who beat the SMM editor of Navalny's headquarters

The Investigative Committee refused to initiate a criminal case against the police who beat the former SMM editor of Navalny’s Moscow headquarters, Alexander Shepelev, during a search on a “sanitary matter.” “Apology of Protest” writes about this.

The search of Shepelev and Mediazona journalist Olya Romashova took place on April 21 without a corresponding court order - the investigative action was supposedly urgent, so the security forces only had a resolution from the senior investigator for particularly important cases. Law enforcement officers used force against Shepelev.

“They put a dog bed on my head and hit my head through it several times, which hit the floor hard. The staff stomped on my jaw with their boots while I lay on my side. I thought that due to the intense pressure, the staff broke my jaw. The employees gave me the strongest and most painful blow to my ribs on the left, almost in the heart area. At some point they said that I was “reinforced concrete,” the opposition activist said in a statement against the security forces.

After the search, Shepelev was taken to the emergency room. A certificate from the Lyubertsy regional hospital states that he was diagnosed with “subcutaneous hemorrhage in the area of ​​the left eyebrow, right shoulder joint, scapular area on both sides of the chest, soft tissue contusion on the left, chest.”

The police admitted using force. The report stated that Shepelev allegedly “began to behave defiantly and tried in every possible way to interfere with the investigative actions <...>”, “as a result of which physical force was used, including fighting techniques.” The next day, Shepelev was fined two thousand rubles under the article on disobedience to police officers.

The former SMM editor of Navalny’s Moscow headquarters filed a statement with the Investigative Committee demanding “to initiate a criminal case for abuse of power committed by law enforcement officers during a search.”

• The first case of violation of sanitary standards due to protests appeared in Moscow. Sentences in this case have already been handed down to Dani Akel , Lyubov Sobol , Kira Yarmysh , Nikolai Lyaskin , Oleg Navalny , Oleg Stepanov , Lyusa Stein , Dmitry Baranovsky and Maria Alekhina . Charges against municipal deputy Konstantin Jankauskas were dropped . All except Akel were accused of inciting violations of sanitary and epidemiological rules. According to investigators, the “inciters” published calls on social networks to go to a rally in support of Navalny, and Akel succumbed to these calls and went to the rally, although he was sick with coronavirus.
• In connection with the detention of Alexei Navalny, a series of protests took place throughout Russia. The largest protests took place on Saturday, January 23, and Sunday, January 31. The security forces reacted harshly to the protests: on January 23, more than 4,000 people were detained, and on January 31, more than 5,500 . On the day the sentence in the Yves Rocher case was changed to a real one,arrests also took place near the Moscow City Court building, including journalists. In total, at least 90 criminal cases were opened across the country in the wake of the protests.
• The court recognized the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), the Foundation for the Protection 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