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From now on, we are going to publish summaries of repressions against anarchists, antifascists and social activists in Russia on a regular basis, as well as on how the state opposes our activity. In the January-February issue: sudden amnesty of antifascists in Moscow, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, attempt to ban “Avtonom” zine due to “extremism”, detentions during Jan19 actions, verdicts in Moscow, Murmansk, Petersburg and other “heroic deeds” of cops from “E”-department. If you think that we have missed something in our article, or you know about other cases of repressions, please write to abc-msk@riseup.net On donations for ABC-Moscow check guidelines from here: http://wiki.avtonom.org/en/index.php/Donate
Verdicts for eight “Bolotnoe Case” defendants
On February 24th, Zamoskvoretsky Court delivered verdicts for eight defendants, accused according to “Bolotnoe Case”. The judge, Natalia Nikishina, found eight people guilty in participating in so-called “rioting” on May 6th 2012 at the Bolotnaya square in Moscow and violence against policemen. There were our comrades among the convicted: Alexey Polikhovich (sentenced to 3.5 years in prison colony), Stepan Zimin (sentenced to 3.5 years in prison colony), and Alexandra Dukhanina — she was the only one who got suspended sentence, 3 years and 3 months.
Verdict for Alexey Raskhodchikov
On February 11th, court in Murmansk sentenced anarchist and activist Alexey Raskhodchikov to 1 year in prison colony. He was accused in violence, dangerous for life and health against the official (Part 2, of Criminal Code 318 article). The case against Raskhodchikov has been roughly framed up by local policemen, after they had beaten activist in Summer 2013 during unlawful detention. Details on the sentence and Raskhodchikov’s case. Weeks of actions in solidarity with Alexey Raskhodchikov were organized from February 20th till March 10. You can get information on solidarity actions at the Alexei’s support website: http://raskhodchikov.info
Yandex wallet for raising money for paying up his lawyer and other expenses: 410011959939084
You may send letters for Alexey using the following address: 84355,
Murmanskaya oblast, kolskiy raion, p. Murmashi, ul. Zelenaya, 14 “a”. IK N16
for Alexey Valerevich Raskhodchikov.
Note that we do not know yet if letters in English are accepted in this prison colony, so it is better to translate your letters with a google translator or pass them for support group to be translated: raskhodchikov.info <> gmail <> com
Cases against “extremism”
In the November, court of Tyumen suddenly decided to declare three old issues of Avtonom magazine (29, 32, and 33) as “extremist”. According to attorney office, some articles of the magazine allegedly advocate terrorism, and call to violence against Nazi and policemen. More details on an insane expert evaluation made by cop-friendly linguists and ban of three issues.
Nevertheless, theses magazine issues have not been included into the federal list of extremist materials yet. Tyuman court decision would be challenged, possibly.
Ban of three particular issues does not affect other other issues of “Avtonom” — they are absolutely legal. A new issue was published recently, do not miss it!
Detentions after actions
Our comrades were detained after January-19 actions in Irkutsk and Petersburg. In Irkutsk two activists were detained after dropping an antifascist banner from a building. They had spent a day and night in a detention room, after that a court justified them. Story from activists is published here.
In Saint Petersburg, anarchists blocked the traffic on Vasilievsky Ostrov and marched with banners and chants on January 19th. After the actions, policemen detained several activists, they were released later with offence reports filed.
In Petersburg, on February 22, activists supporting Ukraine uprising were detained, while burning tyres in front of Spas-na-Krovi Cathedral in the city centre. After two days, court justified two of detained, who were under an accusation of disorderly conduct (art. 20.1 of Administrative Code), and the court hearing related to unauthorized rally was rescheduled to an indefinite date.
Amnesty for “hooligans”
In December, State Duma (Russian Parliament) declared amnesty for prisoners and accused, as a “handsome gesture” of “generous” State, it turned out to be a usual fraud and nothing. However, some had a luck: to escape of the worldwide shame, a special point for jailed Greenpeace environmentalists has been included into amnesty statement. First, environmentalists were accused of “piracy”, later the accusation has been changed to “hooliganism”. Amnesty applies to all accused in such crime — by a fluke, it was announced in the time, when some of our comrades were judged with fake “hooliganism” charges.
As a result, in Moscow, people with hooliganism charges, related with a fight in “Vozdukh” club — Alexey Sutuga, Alexey Olesinov, Babken Gukasyan and Alen Volikov have been amnestied.
In Nizhny Novgorod, Pavel Krivonosov, Oleg Gembaruk, and Dmitry Kolesov, who were accused in participation in an extremist group “Antifa-RASH”, fabricated by “E”-department officers, have been amnestied. Unfortunately, another two activists—Albert Gainutdinov and Artem Bystrov—who succeeded in escaping, have not been amnestied.
Details on amnesty and the “Antifa-RASH” case
In Kazan, Ruslan Rostov, Oleg Kapustyanov, Artem Sher, and Dmitry Ilichev, who were detained in April 2013 and accused of attacking local Nazis (who actively helped the investigation with their false witness), were amnestied.
In Moscow, people accused of attacking gigs of right-wing “Russkii Styag” and OHS bands—Irina Lipskaya, Andrey Molchanov, Alexander Chuprov, Andrey Gerasimov, and Amil Eminov— have been amnestied.
Current criminal prosecution
Series of our comrades are still under investigation on fake charges, some of them are jailed in pretrial custody.
Alexey Gaskarov is charged, as part of “Bolotnoe case”, with “participation in riots” and violence against official — Alexey is accused of pulling a hand of a conscript soldier and a leg of a riot police officer. According Alexey, he really tried to pull that riot policeman away from a demonstrator lying on the ground, who was being clubbed by that policeman. That is all his “crime”.
You can send funds for paying up lawyers (of Alexey and other political prisoners) to the following Yandex.Money wallet: 410011867897149
Web-site in support of Alexey: http://gaskarov.info.
Ilya Romanov, since the end of 80-es, who has been actively participating in anarchist movement, was injured on October 26th 2013 near the Nizhny Novgorod district military registration and enlistment office. As a result of detonation, that happened in the late night, his left hand was severely injured, and face has been burned, he was sent to hospital, where doctors have amputated his hand. Romanov has been interrogated as suspect, and has given statement that a pyrotechnic device activated in his hand.
In December 2013, Romanov was accused of possessing explosives (Criminal Code article 222), and, additionally, in a terrorist act attempt(Criminal Code article 205, 30). There is no ground to accuse Romanov of terrorism, as there is no corpus delicti. Recently Ilia was included into the List of terrorists and extremists of Russian Financial Monitoring Agency, under the number 1935. He is currently jailed in a pretrial custody.
You may transfer money to his wife Larisa for paying up Ilia’s lawyer:
Yandex.Money 410012031648898
You may write to Ilya:
Romanov Ilya Eduardovich 1967 g.r.
SIZO-1, pr. Gagarina 26 “A”
603098 N. Novgorod Russia
Note that Russian pre-trial detention facilities do not accept letters in other languages than Russian, so please translate your letter for example with google translation in prior to sending.
Prepared by ABC-Moscow collective
On repressions in Belarus you can read at ABC-Belarus web-site http://abc-belarus.org/ (it is blocked by some ISP’s, use proxies or TOR-Browser)