Electoral "discrediting"

The security forces came with searches for the office and home to the participants of the Voice movement because of the post in the telegram channel of the Ivanovo activist

In several regions of Russia, searches were searched by the analyst of the election of Sergei Spilkin and the Voice movement employees (the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation has long been considering him a “foreign agent”) in the criminal case to discredit the Russian military. The reason for the persecution was the publication in the telegram channel “Emigrant Diary”, where the Ivanovo activist Mikhail Gusev wrote that they were going to start a criminal case of evasion of military service against him. He stated that he did not want to go to the army, which he described as "occupation". In the movement itself, mass searches were called by pressure on civilian observers on the eve of the 2024 presidential election campaign.

Activist from Ivanovo Mikhail Gusev is an observer for elections and a participant in anti -war shares. On March 12, in his hometown, he went out with a piece of paper on which he drew eight six -pointed figures similar to typographic “stars” (separately three and five). The police detained Gusev and drew up a protocol on it under an article on “discrediting the Russian army” (Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation). In less than a week, Gusev went to a picket with an empty poster. The activist was again detained, but released from the police department without a protocol.

But the Ivanovo police did not forget about the first protocol: she turned to an expert-sociologist with a request to interpret the poster with stars and explain whether he refers to military operations in Ukraine. Based on the examination, the police, and then the court found that the words “no war” were encrypted on the poster. The police also indicated that five -pointed stars are symbolism, which "for most citizens is associated with military themes." On June 2, the Lenin court of Ivanov fined Gusev for 45 thousand rubles for the "discrediting of the army."

Gusev did not wait for the court and on May 25 decided to leave Russia. “I am leaving, of course, not forever. I will definitely come back when my country will understand that it is going the wrong way and return to the civilized path of development, ” the activist wrote in his telegram channel“ Emigrant Diary ”. Gusev is currently in Serbia.

In August, he received a resolution from the UK that an audit was carried out against him on the fact of evasion from military service in the army. Employees of the local military registration and enlistment office asked to institute criminal proceedings. However, the investigator did not find a crime in Gusev’s actions and refused to open the case.

“Apparently, the Ivanovo military registration and enlistment office was very much offended by the fact that I left Russia because of the unwillingness to join the army of fascists and invaders who kills civilians of Ukraine and bombing residential buildings,” Gusev wrote in Telegraph.

This statement will eventually become a formal basis for initiating a criminal case under Art. 280.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (public discrediting the Armed Forces of Russia). On the morning of October 5, the security forces broke up with a search of an analyst in the Moscow apartment for the election of Sergei Shpilkin (since 2007 it has been publishing tests of election results). He himself now lives outside of Russia, his wife Olga Artamonova was in his home.

As she told Novaya Gazeta. Europe ”lawyer Katerina Tertukhina, spilkina's wife did not manage to open the door to the security forces: they immediately took up the grinder and opened the door. “Olga became bad, she has heart problems. She did not understand what was happening. The security forces behaved as usual: brazenly and did not say anything. They completely refused to put me on the threshold of the apartment, ”Tertukhina said, adding that the investigation group did not provide any documents about the search. The lawyer only managed to see that the security forces have a resolution dated September 29. During the search, all electronic media and documents related to the analysis of suffrage were seized from the home.

The security forces also searched the dwelling of the co -chair of the Voice Grigory Melkonian. All telephone and computer equipment was seized from him, as well as bank cards, flash drives and passport.

On the same day, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia conducted searches in Moscow, Pskov, Ivanov, Perm and Chelyabinsk at the places of residence of the leaders and activists of the Voting. Investigative actions took place in the office of the movement. In particular, the security forces showed up in the apartments: members of the Council of Movement Vitaly Kovin, Arkady Lyubarev, Irina Maltseva, coordinator in the Chelyabinsk region Natalia Guseva. The searches also took place at the member of the Yabloko regional council Katerina Novikova, the deputy of the Black volost from the Yabloko party, Nikolai Kuzmin and the editor of the Pskov province, Denis Kamayagin. All of them go on business as witnesses.

In his telegram channel, a member of the Voice Council Vitaly Averin published a decision to search in Novikova’s apartment, just dated for September 29. According to the document, investigative actions are carried out as part of the Gusev case. “Being in an unidentified place, [Gusev M.A.] posted in the“ Emigrant Diary ”that was administered by him the resource <...> the record addressed to an unlimited wide circle of people containing a negative assessment of the RF Armed Forces, simultaneously attributing to them the commission of violent actions against civilians of Ukraine,” the resolution says. By the time of writing the text, 80 people were signed on the telegram channel "Diary of the Emigrant".

“Apparently, Gusev’s case is just an occasion, and the searches themselves were carried out with one purpose: to punish the participants in the Voice movement for their adamance in the struggle for honest free elections, for the legal and humane state,” Averin believes.

In the movement of the Voice, what happened as pressure on civilian observers on the eve of the presidential election campaign of 2024 is regarded, until the start of which less than 15 months remained. “For some reason, law enforcement officers considered Mikhail Gusev the voting functionary. In addition, Mikhail Gusev is not included in any GOOD Governing bodies. Moreover, at least in one of the searches, the court indicated that the Voice was recognized in the territory of Russia an“ unwanted structure ”,” the organization was published.

The Voice movement emphasizes that the so -called “unwillingness”, which law enforcement officers blame, cannot be recognized as such in Russia, since this status applies only to foreign legal entities, but the “Voice” is established in Russia: “The movement is not a“ agent of foreign influence ”, but an agent of Russian citizens who are guaranteed by the constitution, the right to participate in the regulation of the state.”