The magistrate's court district No. 152 of the Petrograd district of St. Petersburg stopped proceedings against activist Vitaly Ioffe because of the “Strategy-18” action in support of the Crimean Tatars. This was reported by his lawyer from OVD-Info Olesya Vasilchenko.
The court dismissed the case due to the lack of corpus delicti. The case of activist Tatyana Sichkareva, who is accused of participating in the same action, was postponed due to proper notification of the date and time of the hearing.
Ioffe and Sichkareva were detained near the Gorkovskaya metro station, where they were holding a rally against the repression of the Crimean Tatars. Later, protocols were drawn up against them under the article on violation of covid restrictions (Article 8.6.1 of the Law “On Administrative Offenses in St. Petersburg”).
The defense pointed to inadequate notice of the date and place of changes to the protocol, as well as other contradictions in the materials.
On October 16, the case of Tatyana Sichkareva was also dismissed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, Vasilchenko reports.
The news headline has been changed due to the termination of the case against Sichkareva
- Vitaly Ioffe regularly pickets in support of political prisoners and against the war. The last time he was detained was on September 29 because of a poster in support of Olga Smirnova, a participant in the “anti-war cause.”
- In St. Petersburg, activists are regularly detained with pickets on various topics: against Putin , local legislators , in support of Navalny and other political prisoners . Also in the northern capital, participants in the open-ended protest action “Strategy-18”, who speak out in support of the Crimean Tatars, are often detained .
- According to the federal law on rallies, it is not necessary to notify the authorities about a single picket and agree on its location. Despite this, throughout Russia, picketers are regularly detained under various pretexts. You can read more about the rules for conducting a single picket in our instructions .