In St. Petersburg, the court declared the denial of access to a lawyer from OVD-Info to those detained at the protest in 2021 illegal

In St. Petersburg, the Krasnogvardeisky District Court declared illegal the denial of access to OVD-Info lawyer Sergei Podolsky to those detained at a rally in support of Alexei Navalny on April 21, 2021. Podolsky himself told OVD-Info about this.

The actions of employees of police department No. 26 in the Krasnogvardeisky district, who refused to allow a lawyer to see the detainees on April 21 and 22, were recognized as illegal. When filing an administrative claim, Podolsky paid a fee of 300 rubles; the court decided to collect this amount from the police and reimburse the lawyer.

• After the arrest of politician Alexei Navalny in January 2021, a series of protests took place throughout Russia, mass protests took place on Saturday January 23, Sunday January 31 and February 2 (the day Navalny’s suspended sentence was replaced with a real one). The security forces reacted harshly to the protests: on January 23, more than 4,000 people were detained, on January 31, more than 5,500 , and on February 2, more than 1,400 people . In connection with the action on April 21, which took place in response to doctors not being allowed to see Navalny in the colony, more than 2,200 people were detained, including at least 363 on surveillance cameras.