The court suspended the consideration of the case of deprivation of citizenship of an environmental activist who opposed the war

The court suspended the consideration of the case on the deprivation of eco-activist from the Moscow region Arshak Makichyan of Russian citizenship. This is reported by the "First Department".

The lawyers of the project appealed the claims of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the documents on the basis of which the young man received Russian citizenship. The court agreed to return to the case after considering the administrative claim.

In June, the prosecutor's office demanded that Makichyan be stripped of his citizenship. Since the beginning of the war, he and his wife Polina Oleinikova began to go out to protest - on February 25 they were detained at the exit from the house when the girl planned to hold a rally. The activist also spoke out against the Russian intrusion on social media.

In March, the couple left Russia for Europe and continued to oppose the war there. In May, the activist wrote on social networks that he plans to come back to Russia. “Perhaps they do not want me to return,” he reasoned, speaking of the likely reasons for the persecution.

The “First Department” talked about what became the formal reason for the persecution of the activist by the authorities: “Firstly, the Ministry of Internal Affairs itself lost his [Makichyan’s] documents, and secondly, <…> Arshak’s 2004 questionnaire contains the address where he allegedly did not live – because now, in 2022, this house is recognized as uninhabitable.”

• Before the start of the war, Makichyan was repeatedly detained ( one , two , three ) at the Fridays for Future movement, whose members want to draw attention to the problem of the climate crisis. After one of the protests, the young man was arrested for six days. Also in January, he was detained at a picket against the entry of troops into Kazakhstan.