A St. Petersburg resident, detained on April 21, 2021, sued the Ministry of Internal Affairs for 18 thousand rubles

The St. Petersburg City Court increased the amount of compensation to 18 thousand rubles for St. Petersburg resident Dmitry Gusev, who was detained leaving his house on the day of the rally in support of Alexei Navalny on April 21, 2021 and spent 15 hours in the police department. Lawyer Maria Malysheva, who led the case, reported this to OVD-Info.

The city court made a decision on October 12, and now Gusev and his representative have received the finished document.

In the first instance, the Smolninsky District Court of St. Petersburg on May 17 ordered compensation for property damage in the amount of 15 thousand rubles, but refused compensation for moral damage. The appeal partially satisfied the claim for moral damages, adding another three thousand rubles to the amount that the police must pay.

The police accused Dmitry Gusev on April 21, 2022 of “obscene language” in a public place. 15 hours after the man was delivered, the chief of police fined him 500 rubles under the article on petty hooliganism (Part 1 of Article 20.1 of the Administrative Code). The Petrogradsky District Court canceled the fine on June 28, 2021 due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, but Gusev appealed this decision and achieved dismissal of the case due to the absence of an offense.

• 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.