Kamchatka communist fined for picketing against telegram blocking and “digital suppression”

The Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Court fined local activist of the Russian Communist Party (Internationalists) Andrei Kalinin 20 thousand rubles under the protocol on organizing an uncoordinated action (Part 2 of Article 20.2 of the Administrative Code). Mediazona drew attention to the text of the decision dated April 20.

The police drew up a report against him for a group picket on March 1 with a poster with the inscriptions: “The administration of the PCGO is preventing the protest,” “against blocking telegram!”, “RCP(s),” “we are for freedom of assembly and against digital suppression!”

In addition to Kalinin, according to the logic of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, two more people took part in the action - a man and a woman. However, the communist did not admit at the trial that they were together: according to him, they were a random passer-by and a woman who gave him a lift to the place of the protest.

“The police are trying to present what happened as an action allegedly carried out not by one person, but by “two or more persons.” At the same time, the law does not restrict the picketer’s communication with passers-by,” said a statement from the Kamchatka branch of the RCP(i).

However, the court considered the action to be a “hidden form of public event” - “creating the appearance of a single picket in order to avoid liability.”