A Moscow activist who climbed a poplar tree with a crossbow to protest construction near the park was sent for compulsory treatment

The Babushkinsky District Court of Moscow decided to send for compulsory treatment to activist Olga Kuzmina, who two years ago climbed a poplar tree with a crossbow to stop construction near the park. This was reported by the press service of the capital's courts.

The Muscovite was accused of hooliganism with the use of a weapon (Part 2 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code), but the court decided to choose “coercive measures against the insane” for her, as follows from the case file. The part of the article that the activist was charged with carries a punishment of up to seven years in prison.

On August 9, 2021, Kuzmina climbed a poplar tree in Babushkinsky Park with the help of a truck crane and tied herself to the branches with belts as a sign of disagreement with the construction that began near the park. The Muscovite asked to declare the construction illegal, since the urban development plan threatened to destroy the square and violated the law on environmental protection.

After the protest, the activist was placed under house arrest, during which the court decided to place her in a psychiatric hospital for 30 days. “The investigation ordered an outpatient psychiatric examination, as a result [of which] there was a conclusion from the doctors that they could not conduct the examination on an outpatient basis and recommended placing her in a hospital,” said lawyer Katerina Tertukhina.

Later, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of the capital drew up a protocol against Kuzmina for damaging five poplar branches (clause 1 of Article 4.18 of the Moscow Administrative Code). As a result, she was fined three and a half thousand rubles.