Mediazona: Russian Show Trial Calendar

баршай Russian political prisoner Andrei Barshay, holding up a handmade placard reading “Free Everyone!” at his custody hearing in Moscow on October 16. Photo by Yevgeny Feldman. Courtesy of Vedomosti

Mediazona

The regime has ratcheted up its crackdown, but the numbers of people willing to help those affected by the crackdown by writing letters to prisoners, sending care packages to remand prisons, and attending court hearings have increased as well. Mediazona has been covering all the important court cases in Russia, and so we will be publishing a “Court Schedule” in which we summarize all the important court hearings in the coming week, updating it as new information is made available.

Seventh Studio Case (Retrial)
Room 409, Meshchansky District Court, Moscow
Judge Olesya Mendeleyeva
10:00 a.m, November 5

Director Kirill Serebrennikov, Culture Ministry employee Sofia Apfelbaum, and ex-Seventh Studio heads Alexei Malobrodsky and Yuri Itin have been accused of embezzling 133 million rubles allocated to the Platform theater project.

Initially, the defendants in the case were under house arrest, but later they were released on their own recognizance. In early September, the court sent the case back to the prosecutor’s office after a comprehensive forensic analysis was performed. On October 8, Moscow City Court overruled that decision, ordering a retrial in the case.

Mediazona has been covering the Seventh Studio Case.

New Greatness Case (Main Trial)
Room 219, Lyublino District Court, Moscow
Judge Alexander Maslov
2:00 p.m., November 5

Moscow’s Lyublino District Court has been hearing the case of eight members of the little-known movement New Greatness, who have been accused of involvement with an “extremist” organization, as punishable by Articles 282.1.1 and 282.1.2 of the Russian Criminal Code. The prosecution’s case is based on testimony given by a person identified as “Ruslan D.,” who is presumably an informant employed by the security services. The defense has insisted it was “Ruslan D.” who encouraged the activists to create a political organization and drafted its charter.

Four of the defendants—Ruslan Kostylenkov, Pyotr Karamzin, Vyacheslav Kryukov, and Dmitry Poletayev—have been in police custody since March 2018. At the October 17 hearing, Kostylenkov and Kryukov slashed their wrists to protest the extension of their time in remand prison.

Three defendants—Anna Pavlikova, Maria Dubovik, and Maxim Roshchin—are under house arrest. The eighth defendant, Sergei Gavrilov, has left Russia and asked for political asylum in Ukraine. He is on the wanted list.

Mediazona has been covering the New Greatness Case.

Dmitry and Olga Prokazov (Child Custody Case)
Room 520 (Appeals Wing), Moscow City Court
Judge Olga Igonina
9:20 a.m., November 6

Dmitry and Olga Prokazov went to the protest rally in Moscow on July 27 with their one-year-old son. The Moscow Prosecutor’s Office decided they had put the boy in danger and asked the court to strip the couple of their parental rights. According to Dmitry Prokazov, on July 27 they had gone only to places where they saw no threat to their child.

“We were tired and decided to go home. I asked our friend Sergei [Fomin] to join us. He agreed and we headed home together. Sergei is my best friend, my childhood friend. He’s the godfather of my eldest son and my wife’s cousin. […] At some point, I asked Sergei to carry the child, and we went to the subway together and then home,” Prokazov recalled.

On August 15, police searched the Prokazovs’ home on the basis of a criminal investigation launched by the Investigative Committee, which suspected the couple of abandonment (Article 125 of the Russian Criminal Code) and failure to perform parental duties (Article 156). Defense lawyer Maxim Pashkov said investigators had no grievances against the couple after questioning them.

In early September, the Lefortovo District Court ruled in favor of the Prokazovs, refusing to deprive them of parental custody. The prosecutor’s office appealed the decision. The hearing at Moscow City Court has been postponed twice.

Penza Case (Main Trial)
Penza Regional Court
A panel of three judges, chaired by Yuri Klubkov
11:00 a.m., November 6, 7, 8

Seven antifascists—Maxim Ivankin, Vasily Kuksov, Maxim Kulkov, Dmitry Pchelintsev, Arman Sagynbayev, Anton Chernov, and Ilya Shakursky—have been charged with founding the “terrorist community Network.” According to the FSB, the defendants were planning to “stir up the masses in order to then destabilize the political situation in the country” and organize a rebellion during the 2018 presidential election and 2018 World Football Cup. The criminal case against the men was launched in the autumn of 2017.

Pchelintsev and Shakursky have said they were tortured with electrical shocks in the basement of the Penza Remand Prison. In September 2018, Sagynbayev, who initially pleaded guilty, said he had also been tortured into testifying. Another defendant, Viktor Filinkov, an alleged member of the Network’s Petersburg cell, has also said he was tortured with an electrical shocker after the FSB detained him.

Although the case is being heard by the Volga District Military Court, the hearings have been taking place at the Penza Regional Court. Experts and witnesses are to be examined at the upcoming hearings.

Mediazona has been covering the Penza Case.

Moscow Case: Eduard Malyshevsky (Merits Hearing)
Room 356, Tverskaya District Court, Moscow
Judge Belyakov
3:30 p.m., November 6

47-year-old Eduard Malyshevsky is accused of violence against a police officer (Russian Criminal Code Article 318.1). According to investigators, after he was detained at the July 27 rally, Malyshevsky kicked out the window of a paddy wagon, which grazed a police officer as it fell to the ground. The defense claims that when Malyshevsky saw two women being beaten by police, he was outraged and pounded on the window, but did not see the police officers next to the vehicle.

After the rally, a court sentenced Malyshevsky to thirteen days in jail for disorderly conduct (Article 20.1.1 of the Administrative Offenses Code). When he was released from the detention facility, Malyshevsky went home to Khimki. A month after the rally, on August 30, he was detained by police and remanded in custody.

Moscow Case: Nikita Chirtsov (Remand Appeal)
Room 225, Moscow City Court
10:00 a.m., November 7

Chirtsov, who took part in the July 27 rally, was detained in Minsk on August 28. Local law enforcement officials explained that Chirtsov, 22, was on the wanted list in Russia on suspicion of using violence against police officers and involvement in rioting.

Chirtsov was expelled from Belarus and banned from entering the country for ten years. On the evening of August 30, he flew from Minsk to Moscow. He was met at Domodedovo Airport by a Mediazona correspondent, but no one attempted to detain Chirtsov.

Chirtsov was detained only two days later, on September 2. Investigators charged him with only one crime: violence against a police officer (Russian Criminal Code Article 318.1), to which he has pleaded not guilty. Chirtsov was remanded in custody on September 3.

Moscow Case: Vladimir Yemelyanov (Remand Appeal)
Room 225, Moscow City Court
10:15 a.m, November 7

Yemelyanov, 27, is accused of grabbing [Russian National Guardsman] Kosov by the uniform at the July 27 protest and pulling him over, making it impossible for him to move and causing him physical pain. Yemelyanov has pleaded not guilty, insisting he did nothing illegal.

A store merchandiser, Yemelyanov suffers from asthma. An orphan, he lives with his 74-year-old grandmother and 91-year-old great-grandmother. Although his grandmother went to his custody hearing, the judge did not allow the parties to question her on the stand.

“I felt civically responsible for the people against whom force was used [at the July 27 rally] and took it upon myself to stop the illegal actions of the Russian National Guardsmen. For my part, I see nothing wrong in the fact that I tried to save a person,” Yemelyanov said in court.

Yemelyanov was remanded in custody on October 16.

Moscow Case: Andrei Barshay (Remand Appeal)
Room 225, Moscow City Court
10:30 a.m., November 7

Like the other defendants in the Moscow Case, 21-year-old Andrei Barshay, a student at the Moscow Aviation Institute, is accused of violence against a police officer, as punishable by Article 318.1 of the Russian Criminal Code.

According to investigators, Barshay pushed a Russian National Guardsman in the back at the July 27 protest rally. Barshay was detained only on October 14. He came to his custody hearing with a piece of paper on which he had written the words “Free Everyone!” On October 16, the Basmanny District Court remanded him in custody for two months.

After Barshay was sent to remand prison, his lawyers reported that his cellmates, who were ex-convicts, had joked about rape in their client’s presence and tried to persuade him to make a deal with investigators. Barshay was then sent for an inpatient psychological and psychiatric examination.

“Undesirable Organization” Case: Yana Antonova
Lenin District Court, Krasnodar
Judge Vitaly Gavlovsky
12:00 p.m., November 7

Antonova, a pediatric surgeon and former Open Russia coordinator in Krasnodar, is accused of involvement in the work of an “undesirable organization,” as punishable by Article 284.1 of the Russian Criminal Code.

The pretext for the case were two posts Antonova made on Facebook and her attendance of a protest rally. In the first post, she wrote about the lack of schools in Krasnodar; in the second, she encouraged people to attend a rally in support of Anastasia Shevchenko from Rostov-on-Don, who has also been charged with involvement in an “undesirable organization.”

Thanks to Elena Zakharova for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader. Please read my previous posts on the 2019 Russian regional elections and the fallout from them, including the ongoing crackdowns against opposition politicians and rank-and-file protesters.

#STOP212 (Flash Mob)

“The Moscow Case must be dropped.”

Prisoners of the Article 212 Case
Facebook
October 27, 2019

We are launching a flash mob, #STOP212.

Oaks are trees. Sparrows are birds. Russia is our fatherland. The Moscow Case must be dropped.

Recent successful grassroots campaigns have shown that large-scale solidarity actions are an effective weapon against the tyranny of the state.

Let us once again stand together against lawlessness and injustice by filling the streets with demands to stop persecuting the prisoners.

It’s easy to take part. Grab one of the three image files stored here and print it out. Or you can pick up a sticker from one of our friends in downtown Moscow: Chernyi Cooperative, Khodasevich Bookstore, Barking Store, and Delai Kulturu / DK.

Stick it on your smartphone or backpack and then hit the streets. Don’t be afraid of anything.

#стоп212_стикер 5х5cm

The Article 212 Case is our common cause.

Join us. It’s legal, and it’s beautiful.

delo212.ru/stop212

Thanks to Andrey Silvestrov for the heads-up. Images courtesy of delo21.2ru. Translated by the Russian Reader

Two Babushkas

Valentina Fyodorovna and Tamara Andreyevna, the great-grandmother and grandmother of Vladimir Yemelyanov, recently charged in the so-called Moscow case. Photo courtesy of Current Time

The Two Grandmothers of a Prisoner in the Moscow Case: How Vladimir Yemelyanov’s Family Gets On
Yevgenia Kotlyar
Current Time
October 18, 2019

Tamara Andreyevna, the grandmother of a new defendant in the so-called Moscow case, Vladimir Yemelyanov, comes home from the hospital. She shows me her grandson’s room, which police searched on October 14. They arrived early, at 5:30 in the morning.

The woman cries.

“We just didn’t expect any of this. It would be another if he had behaved like a hooligan or something,” she says.

Tamara Andreyevna shows me her grandson’s desk, books, and game console. She says the security forces were looking for leaflets but only confiscated his personal diary.

“They came in here. The guards stood out there, while those guys turned this entire desk upside down. They rifled through everything. They were looking for leaflets or something else but found nothing. They wanted to confiscate the computer, but then changed their minds,” she recounts.

Vladimir was taken away after the search. On October 16, a court remanded him in custody for, allegedly, grabbing a Russian National Guardsman. In this footage, Yemelyanov, who is wearing a pink t-shirt, tries to pull a Russian National Guardsman away from the people at whom he is swinging his baton.

Vladimir lived in a modest apartment in the Moscow suburb of Mytishchi with his grandmother, Tamara Andreyevna, aged 74, and his great-grandmother, Valentina Fyodorovna, aged 92. The women say Vova helped them around the house by buying groceries and peeling potatoes. In his free time, he played computer games.

“He’s very secretive. He’s shy about telling you things. Other people tell you everything, but not him. He’s quiet, he kept everything to himself. He worked every day. I don’t know about his work, I didn’t ask him where he worked. He gave us money for the bills and food, he wasn’t a dependant,” says Tamara Andreyevna.

According to her, she raised her grandson from birth because his mother abandoned him in the maternity hospital. They didn’t know the father.

She shows me old photographs.

“Here’s Vovka when he was little,” she says. “She had him out of wedlock. He’s a half-breed, a Turk.”

Vova was a quiet young man. He finished eleven grades at school, then went to a vocational college, but then dropped out of university, she says. Tamara Andreyevna knew nothing about his going to protest rallies, although they occasionally spoke about politics.

“I didn’t even know there was a rally. I don’t watch the news, I’m not interested, but he went looking for the truth. I told him, ‘Vova, you won’t prove anything to anyone.’ He always upset about how people lived. On that count he was fair. Only no one has any use for this,’ says Tamara Andreyevna.

The family is uneasy with Vladimir at home: his great-grandmother is deaf, has poor eyesight, and has a hard time walking. When Tamara Andreyevna was in the hospital, she lost her medicine.

“Tamara, my eye medicine fell in there. I pulled everything out, but I can’t get in there,” the old woman complains.

Vladimir Yemelyanov faces up to five years in prison. He has been charging with assaulting a police officer. He pleaded not guilty.

“I think I cheered Grandma up. I said, ‘Mom, they said he’ll be in there until December 14, for two months.’ She said, ‘Oh, yeah? I’ll probably live to see the day.’ I bawled the whole way home,” Tamara Andreyevna says.

Vova’s great-grandmother, Valentina Fyodorovna, is certain her great-grandson will come home on December 14 when his two months in remand prison is over.

Thanks to Dmitry Kalugin for the heads-up. Translated by the Russian Reader

“Free Everyone!”: Five More Men Arrested and Charged in Moscow Case

What We Know About the New Defendants in the Moscow Case: Basmanny District Court Remands Four of Them in Custody for Two Months
Vedomosti
October 16, 2019

mosdelo-1 Andrei Barshay, 21 years old, a student at Moscow Aviation Institute. Volunteer teacher at the institute’s physics and math magnet school. Pleaded not guilty to charges of using force against a police officer. Investigators claim Barshay ran at a Russian National Guardsman and pushed him in the back, causing him pain, during the July 27 protest rally in Moscow. Photo by Yevgeny Feldman. Courtesy of Vedomosti.

mosdelo-2 Vladimir Yemelyanov, 27 years old. Lives in Mytishchi and works as a store merchandiser. Pleaded not guilty to charges of using force against a police officer. Until his arrest, he took care of his 74-year-old grandmother and 91-year-old great-grandmother. Investigators claim he grabbed a Russian National Guardsman by the uniform and pulled him over, making it impossible for him to move and causing him physical pain. Photo by Andrei Vasiliev. Courtesy of TASS and Vedomosti

mosdelo-3 Maxim Martintsov, 27 years old, laboratory worker. Pleaded not guilty to charges of using force against a police officer. Lives in Moscow but family lives in Bryansk Region. Until his arrest, he financially supported his elderly grandmother and grandfather. Investigators claim that, during the July 27 protest rally, he was on Rozhdestvenka Street, where he and Yegor Lesnykh attacked a Russian National Guardsman and threw him on the pavement. Photo by Andrei Vasiliev. Courtesy of TASS and Vedomosti

mosdelo=4 Yegor Lesnykh, 34 years old, native of Volzhsky, lives in Moscow. Works as a self-employed renovator. Pleaded not guilty to charges of using force against a police officer. Investigators claim that, during the July 27 protest rally, he and Maxim Martintsov threw a Russian National Guardsman on the pavement. In addition, Lesnykh, allegedly, kicked another law enforcement officer in the lower right part of his back. Photo by Andrei Vasiliev. Courtesy of TASS and Vedomosti

mosdelo-5 Alexander Mylnikov, 34 years old. Lives in the South Butovo district of Moscow, and is employed as a courier. Pleaded not guilty. Investigators asked the court to put Mylnikov under house arrest. The father of three young children, he supports them and his spouse. Investigators claim that, during the July 27 protest rally, he, Yegor Lesnykh, and Maxim Martintsov threw a riot policeman on the ground. Photo by Andrei Vasiliev. Courtesy of TASS and Vedomosti

Translated by the Russian Reader. Please read my previous posts on the 2019 Russian regional elections and the fallout from them, including the ongoing crackdowns against opposition politicians and rank-and-file protesters.

Vladislav Barabanov: Anarchism and Center “E”

e9efc978d793898ae4de6e727570e6ca Vladislav Barabanov during a rally on September 29, 2019, on Sakharov Avenue in Moscow in support of suspects and defendants in the Moscow case, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) case, and Russia’s political prisoners. Photo by Sergei Bobylev. Courtesy of TASS and Republic

Police Detectives Created YouTube Channel Where They Uploaded Video of “Rioting”: Vladislav Barabanov, Former Suspect in Moscow Case, on Center “E” and Anarchism
Margarita Zhuravlyova
Republic
October 17, 2019

The Russian Investigative Committee has stepped up the investigation of the so-called Moscow case: five people were detained on October 14 and 15 and charged with assaulting police officers. In total, twenty-six people have been investigated as part of the case, which was launched in the wake of protests this past summer in Moscow; only six of them have gone free. One of them is Vladislav Barabanov, an anarchist from Nizhny Novgorod. He made a special trip to Moscow for the July 27 protest rally, was arrested on August 3 and charged with involvement in rioting, and was released from remand prison in early September. In an interview with Republic, he recounted how a video entitled “Our Attempt to Overthrow the Government” found its way into the evidence against him, how his jailers hinted he might be tortured, and what he talked about with Center “E” officers.

Prosecution
The wording of the charges against me was vague: “group of individuals,” “sprayed tear gas,” “destroyed property,” and so on. In my case file, however, there were two screenshots from a video that was uploaded, I am certain, by the very same police detectives who were involved in cooking up the criminal case against me. They created a channel on YouTube, calling it “Yegor Zhukov” [Yegor Zhukov, who has been charged in the Moscow Case and is currently under house arrest, is a student at the Higher School of Economics—Republic] and uploading a video entitled “Our Attempt to Overthrow the Government.” That was how this recording and two screenshots, in which I am seen marching in front of a crowd and waving my hand, were entered into the evidence. But I did not “coordinate” any riots.

The first alarm bell was at the detention center: someone from the Investigative Committee came there, wanting to interrogate me as a witness. Then I was detained as I was leaving the detention center, making it clear they would try to pin criminal charges on me. But I couldn’t imagine what would happen next and that so many people would be charged. I thought I would be the only one to face these charges.

Given the psychological pressure they applied in the investigative department, it was hard at first. There were these guards there, for example, who talked on the phone with someone and asked, “Where do we keep the gas masks?” I understand perfectly well how gas masks are used during interrogations. They are put on people’s heads as a way of forcing them to testify. Cigarette smoke can be blown into them or the air can be turned off so a person loses consciousness.

I had the support of family members and my comrades, who met me at the detention center after I did time there for administrative offenses. When they saw me being put into a police cruiser and driven away, they blocked the road and tried not to let it get through. They formed a human chain, but the police pushed them aside. Right at that moment, an officer from Center “E” (Center for Extremism Prevention) was sitting next to me in the car and videotaping everything. He wouldn’t let me contact anyone or take out my mobile phone, threatening to confiscate it.

Center “E”
Center “E” was intensely interested me back in Nizhny Novgorod, too. On September 9, 2018, we held an “unauthorized” protest march against the government’s raising the retirement age. Afterward, there was a wave of arrests, with the police detaining some people in their homes, and others at work. I was detained at a presentation of the almanac moloko plus. I think they knew me, because I was politically active in Nizhny Novgorod, doing solo pickets and helping organize events.

I didn’t say anything to Center “E” officers without a lawyer present. I was detained along with a comrade. He was released, but I was charged with involvement in an “unauthorized” event that had caused disruption to public transport and impeded pedestrians. They had a file with my name on it in which they rifled through papers. One of the Center “E” officers was really curious about what anarchists had in common with Navalny’s supporters. They were worried opposition forces were consolidating.

Anarchists
Since I was young, I guess, I have had a yearning for justice. I followed the Bolotnaya Square Case and all the events of 2011–2013. I was between fourteen and sixteen then. The first protest rally I ever attended was in Nizhny Novgorod on March 26, 2017, my birthday. Due to my age, I was not involved in the events of 2011–2013, but comrades say that rally, which took place after Alexei Navalny published his investigation of the corruption schemes in which Dmitry Medvedev was involved, drew a much bigger crowd. It was a really cool, very significant event: there had never been anything like it in Nizhny.

I didn’t go to protest rallies before that, although I was interested in politics. This was due to my personal rethinking of effective methods of struggle. First, there was the ideological aspect: perhaps I didn’t see any points of contact among the opposition. Second, I rejected public activism.

If we talk about the anarchist milieu and why I now call myself a libertarian socialist [libertarian socialism is a political philosophy focused on resisting authoritarian coercion and social hierarchy—Republic] the fact of the matter is that there are lots of stereotypes around the notion of anarchists, who are either imagined as subculture types with as subculture types with mohawk haircuts and the letter A on their backs, screaming “Anarchy is the mother of order,” or people in masks whose only thought is torching, blowing up, smashing, and destroying things, meaning anarchists are equated with terrorists.

As for methods, some anarchists consider it more effective to put up leaflets and stickers, do graffiti, and hang banners on the street—as long as no one sees them. Their public activism begins and ends there. But when they are confronted with crackdowns, they take to the public arena all the same, because only a huge public outcry can defend people from persecution.

I think that, if you want to promote your political ideas you have to be as public about it as possible. This will help you get around the stereotypes attached to the notion of anarchism and recruit people to your side.

I see anarchism as the endpoint in society’s evolution. It is what happens when people realize they are capable of solving their problems without recourse to any representatives whatsoever, when they realize they can organize themselves and their own lives. When the concept of centralization goes away, people won’t need power over each other.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Three Years in Prison for Touching a Policeman’s Helmet

Kirill Zhukov was sentenced to three years in prison for touching a Russian National Guardsman’s helmet. Photo by Yevgeny Razumny. Courtesy of Vedomosti

Number of Guilty Verdicts in the Moscow Case Reaches Five
Anastasia Kornya and Svetlana Bocharova
Vedomosti
September 5, 2019

On July 27, 2019, during an “unauthorized” rally in support of independent candidates to the Moscow City Duma, Kirill Zhukhov raised the visor of a helmet worn by a Russian National Guardsman. Yesterday, September 4, he was found guilty of violence towards a government official, as punishable under Article 318.1 of the Russian Criminal, and sentenced to three years in a medium-security prison colony. The verdict said that Zhukov, acting intentionally and fully aware he was dealing with a government official who was performing his duties, struck him a single blow to the head with his left hand in an attempt to tear off the helmet, causing the victim physical pain.

State investigators conducted a special forensic test establishing, allegedly, that even a slight, upward blow with the hand to the helmet’s visor causes the head to tilt back and the strap to make full contact with the skin in the chin area [sic].

Zhukhov, on the contrary, tried to prove he had only waved his hand in front of the guardsman’s visor since he wanted to draw his attention to a woman injured during the rally. But the court reacted to his testimony “critically.” As the judge explained, Zhukhov’s purpose in testifying in this way had been to mitigate the severity of his crime.

On Wednesday, the Meshchansky District Court sentenced Yevgeny Kovalenko to three and a half years in a medium-security prison colony. He was found guilty of violence against two law enforcement officers. Allegedly, he pushed one of the officers and threw a garbage can at the other.

“Fully cognizant that the man before him, Tereshchenko, was performing his duties, [Kovalenko] pushed him on the right side of the torso with both hands, causing him to lose balance and fall from the height of his own height [sic] on the granite steps and experience physical pain,” the verdict stated.

Continuing to act with criminal intent, Kovalenko grabbed National Guardsman Maxim Saliyev by the body armor with both hands, abruptly pulling him and dragging him towards himself and thus causing him physical pain. After Tereshchenko pushed Kovalenko away, Kovalenko grabbed a trash receptacle and threw it at the guardsmen, hitting Saliyev in the lower back. According to the verdict, the guardsman experienced not only physical pain when falling but also emotional suffering since, at that moment, he remembered he had to perform his duties [sic].

During the trial, Kovalenko explained he had not intended any harm. He had only tried to frighten off policemen who were beating up protesters. However, the judge said the court was skeptical of his claims. They were refuted by the evidence in the case file and were an attempt to avoid punishment.

“The court notes the consistent and purposeful nature of the defendant’s actions, testifying to his criminal intent to employ violence,” the verdict stated.

The judge emphasized that arguments about police misconduct could not be considered during the trial and were not evidence of the defendant’s innocence.

Kovalenko’s defense counsel Mansur Gilmanov pointed out that the crime with which his client had been charged was a crime against the normal functioning of government. It thus followed that beating up peaceful protesters was one way in which the government normally functioned, he argued.

Svetlana Bayturina, Zhukov’s lawyer, called the sentence handed down to her client unprecedentedly severe: usually, such cases had resulted in fines for defendants or, at most, suspended sentences. The speed with which the case was investigated and tried was also unprecedented: the investigation took three days; the trial, one. Bayturina promised the defense would appeal the verdict and intended to take the case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

This was the second “judgment day” for arrested protesters. The day before, blogger Vladislav Sinitsa was sentenced to five years in prison for posting a tweet the prosecution had described as a call to harm the children of law enforcement officers. Technician Ivan Podkopayev was sentenced to three years in prison for spraying pepper spray in the direction Russian National Guardsmen, while businessman Danila Beglets was sentenced to two years in prison for grabbing a policeman’s arm. Their cases were tried under the special procedure: neither man denied his guilt.

Gilmanov noted there was no significant difference between the sentences given to defendants who made deals with the prosecution and those handed down to defendants who pleaded not guilty. This testified to the fact the verdicts were political. The sentences were decided by more senior officials and legal nuances did not matter much, he argued.

Protesters arrested and charged under Article 318.1 after a similar “unauthorized” rally in Moscow on March 26, 2017, were given much lighter prison sentences, between eight months and two and a half years. For example, Stanislav Zimovets, convicted of throwing a brick that hit a riot police commander in the back, was sentenced to two years and six months in prison, while Dmitry Krepkin, who kicked a riot policemen’s hip or his billy club, was sentenced to eighteen months in prison. Only Andrei Kosykh, convicted of punching one policeman’s helmet and kicking another policeman in the neck and lower jaw, was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison, but he was convicted under Article 318.2, which covers violence that could result in death or grievous bodily harm.

The sentences in the so-called Moscow case have been roughly the same as those handed out in the Bolotnaya Square Case in 2012, only this time the protesters had not resisted law enforcement officers at all, political commentator Alexei Makarkin noted. According to him, the sentences in the current cases were dictated by the new rules of the game.

“Whereas before if someone hit a policemen in the teeth and damaged the enamel, he would do hard time, now people are getting similar, slightly shorter sentences for lifting the visors on riot policemen’s helmets, while people who grabbed a policemen by the arms are getting two years in prison,” Makarkin said.

In the Bolotnaya Square Case, the official charges looked more serious, Makarkin argues. The confrontation on the square was much rougher. In some ways, it harked back to the 1990s, when people fought with policemen without incurring such long sentences, he noted.

“The Bolotnaya Square Case marked a new phase. We realized the state had made it a rule that if you raised your hand against a police officer, you would go to jail. If a policeman raised a hand against you, he would be commended,” Makarkin said.

This time, the security forces also wanted to punish a certain number of people, but they failed to put together a new Bolotnaya Square case.

“So they decided anyone who had raised their hand and somehow touched a policeman should go to jail. But since they failed to dig up anything serious, they chose from what they had to work with,” Makarkin said.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Max Stropov: The Cop’s Sacred Body

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Max Stropov
Facebook
September 3, 2019

The trials in the so-called Moscow case, in which protesters have been charged with violence against “law enforcement officers” and sentenced to hard time in prison for touching policemen or Russian National Guardsmen, are yet another vivid illustration that violence is not even remotely the issue. The case more resembles lèse-majesté, “doing wrong to majesty,” a modern form of the crime of offending the dignity of sacred authority.

One of the most immediate and common incarnations of this power in the Russian Federation is the Cop’s Body, which has been endowed with more and more mana and has become increasingly taboo. Since the center of power is a void, the ring surrounding the center, the annulus, the sphincter—which, in fact, is the Cop’s Body—has increasingly gained weight. (The numbers of policemen and other “law enforcement officers” in the Russian Federation have been multiplying.)

The Cop’s Body is impersonal, non-individual, and plural. When they are cracking down on demonstrations, law enforcement’s so-called foot soldiers behave like a herd of animals or a swarm of insects. Their faces are concealed. As Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov has argued, they are not citizens.

“In the line of duty,” when “enforcing the law,” their body is transformed into the law’s body. We could also argue, on the contrary, that the law itself is abstract. It means nothing. It acquires reality and efficacy only in the Cop’s Body, which also has no direct connection with the identities of the policeman who constitute it.

Attempts to out and name otherwise anonymous riot cops encounter such resistance not because the cops could get killed, but because they violate the sacredness of their Body.

As for the “physical” and “emotional” trauma they suffer, allegedly, when protesters throw paper cups at them, this trauma is purely symbolic since non-individual, plural, and impersonal power also suffers.

Generally, then, the Cop’s Body does not suffer nor, probably, does it ever die.

Such is the theology of the police. This summer, it would even seem Russian cops have surpassed Russian priests in their sacredness.

Thanks to Max Stropov for his permission to translate and publish this text. Image courtesy of Max Stropov. Translated by the Russian Reader

Al Jazeera’s Love Affair with Militant Russian Orthodox Fascist Homophobe Vitaly Milonov

milonov Russian Orthodox fascist and homophobic terrorist Vitaly Milonov is Al Jazeera’s go-to commentator on Russian current affairs. Photo by Sergei Fadeichev. Courtesy of TASS and the Moscow Times

This is how the “progressive” media works.

I accidentally woke up at five o’clock this morning to discover Al Jazeera’s program The Stream wanted me to be on their panel discussing the Moscow elections and protests at 10 p.m. Moscow time this evening.

The only problem was that, aside from a young researcher at Columbia who seemed okay, the other two panelists Al Jazeera had invited were Vitaly Milonov and Maria Baronova.

I spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon persuading the producer who contacted me that inviting Milonov on their program was like inviting David Duke or Alex Jones.

Would she like to see them on her program? I asked her.

No, of course not, she said.

The problem was that she had no idea whom to invite nor did the young researcher from Columbia. (Which is kind of amazing, too, since the subject of her research is protests and civil society in Russia, but I won’t go there.)

The producer asked whether I could suggest people whom she could invite on the panel.

I could and I did. I sent her a long list that included Leonid Volkov, Grigorii Golosov, Alexander Bikbov, Greg Yudin, Elena Mukhametshina, Maxim Trudolyubov, and Ilya Matveev, along with their social media or email addresses.

Any of them, I explained, would make a great panelist, not because I necessarily agreed with them about everything, but because they knew the subject inside and out.

After that, the producer asked me to record a short “video commentary,” which as she explained, would be used in the show.

I choose to speak, briefly, about the Article 212 Case defendants, some of whom were sentenced to harsh prison terms today and yesterday, while some of them had all charges against them dropped and were set free.

When I sent the producer the video, I asked, since several hours had passed by then, who would be on the panel, finally.

Had she managed to invite any of the people I had suggested?

Almost five hours have gone by with no reply from the producer.

Only forty minutes ago did I look at the show’s page and discover that everything I said and wrote to the producer had been utterly pointless, to wit:

[…] Putin has been in power for 20 years and is due to step down as president in 2024. Many younger demonstrators have never experienced Russia under a different leader, and they and others are pushing to take their country in a more democratic direction. This backdrop helps explain why officials are working hard to contain Moscow’s protests. But whether what’s happening in the capital will spread to the rest of Russia remains up for debate.

In this episode we ask, will protests change anything in Russia? Join the conversation.

On this episode of The Stream, we speak with:

Vitaly Milonov @Villemilonov
Member of the Federal Assembly of Russia

Maria Baronova
Journalist at RT
rt.com

Yana Gorokhovskaia @gorokhovskaia
Researcher at Columbia University

In the midst of all that has been happening in Moscow, one of the world’s most respected news organizations has decided their viewers need to hear from a world-famous militant Russian Orthodox fascist homophobe and a certifiably crazy woman who went from working for Open Russia one day to working for Russia Today the next.

This is a complete travesty.

Oddly, the producer said that Gorokhovskaia, too, had “reservations” about appearing on the same panel with Milonov and Baronova.

She should have had them. // TRR

P.S. As I have also discovered, this was Milonov’s second appearance on the program.

___________________________________________

Anti-Gay Russian Lawmaker Disrupts Opening of LGBT Film Festival
Moscow Times
Oct. 25, 2018

State Duma deputy and notorious anti-gay crusader Vitaly Milonov reportedly attempted to shut down Russia’s only LGBT film festival on its opening night Wednesday.

Milonov, a lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party, has earned a reputation for his inflammatory anti-LGBT rhetoric and is best known for spearheading Russia’s ban on “gay propaganda.”

The St. Petersburg-based Fontanka news website reported that the deputy, accompanied by six men, physically blocked the entrance to the Side by Side film festival on Wednesday evening.

In footage posted online, the lawmaker is heard accusing festival-goers trying to get into the venue of participating in an unsanctioned demonstration.

“Dear citizens, you know yourselves that you are perverts; you need to disperse,” he is heard saying.

“We are Russian people who are on our home soil. And you’re not. Your motherland is Sodom and Gomorrah,” he adds.

According to the festival’s organizers, Milonov claimed that a hostage crisis had unfolded inside the cinema and called the police.

Prompted by Milonov’s call, police officers reportedly evacuated the building. According to Fontanka, around 400 filmgoers who bought tickets were unable to attend the screenings planned for Wednesday.

“The first day of Side by Side was interrupted in an outrageous manner and eventually disrupted by State Duma deputy Vitaly Milonov,” the festival organizers were cited as saying.

Milonov denied that he had alarmed the police about a possible hostage crisis, saying that he came to the event because he believed it may have been “violating Russian law.”

The festival organizers rejected Milonov’s claims that they had broken Russia’s “gay propaganda” law — which bans promoting LGBT values among minors — as minors were not allowed to attend the festival.

Side by Side, Russia’s only annual LGBT film festival — now in its 11th year — has in the past been threatened by government officials and nationalist activists.

The organizers said that the festival would continue as planned this week, despite what they described as Milonov’s “illegal actions.”

Two Years Hard Time for Grabbing a Policeman by the Arm

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Prisoners of the Article 212 Case
Facebook
September 3, 2019

Yet another guilty verdict and yet another hefty prison sentence.

A court has found Danila Beglets guilty and sentenced him to two years in a medium-security penal colony. Beglets was accused of grabbing a policeman by the arm when the latter was detaining protesters.

Beglets has two small children. He is a businessman and the only breadwinner in his family.

Photo of Danila Beglets and his family courtesy of Prisons of the Article 212 Case. Translated by the Russian Reader

P.S. Ivan Podkopayev, another defendant in the Article 2012 case, was found guilty earlier today. He was sentenced to three years in a penal colony for, allegedly, spraying pepper spray in the direction of police officers.

P.P.S. Not all the news from the Article 212 Case was bad. Criminal charges against defendants Daniil Konon, Sergei Abanichev, Vladislav Barabanov, and Valery Kostenok were dropped today.

Prisoners of the Article 212 Case

Our Common Cause
The criminal investigation of the “riot” on July 27, 2019, in Moscow is absurd. The frame-up has been concocted by Russian law enforcement authorities in plain view. All of the people charged in the case are innocent.

We demand that the authorities drop the case.

What Is the Article 212 Case?
On July 27, 2019, thousands of people took to the streets of Moscow to protest the invalidation by the Moscow City Elections Commission of the signatures of thousands of Muscovites in support of independent candidates for the Moscow City Duma, who were consequently barred from standing in the September 8 elections. The peaceful protest was marred when police and other security forces detained 1,373 protesters, an unprecedented number, and injured 77 protesters.

On July 30, 2019, the Russian Investigative Committee launched a criminal investigation of the events of July 27, 2019, under Article 212 of the Russian Criminal Code, which means the authorities want everyone to believe the peaceful protest was a “riot.”

At present, 13 people have been arrested in the case. All of them have been remanded in custody and faced three to eight years in prison if they are convicted as charged.

The Prisoners

Sergei Abanichev
25, manager
Arrested: August 3, 2019
Charges: Russian Criminal Code Article 212.2 (“involvement in rioting”). According to investigators, Abanichev threw a tin can at a police officer on July 27.

212-2

Vladislav Barabanov
22, grassroots activist from Nizhny Novgorod
Arrested: August 3, 2019
Charges: Russian Criminal Code Article 212.2. Barabanov is accused of “directing” protesters on Petrovsky Boulevard on July 27.

212-3

Danila Beglets
27, self-employed
Arrested: August 9, 2019
Charges: Russian Criminal Code Article 212.2
Remanded in custody until October 9, 2019.

212-4

Aydar Gubaydulin
25, graduate of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology
Arrested: August 9, 2019
Charges: Russian Criminal Code Article 212.2

212-5

Yegor Zhukov
21, student, Higher School of Economics
Arrested: August 2, 2019
Charges: Russian Criminal Code Article 212.2. Zhukov is accused of directing the crowd on August 27 by “pointing to the right.”
Moscow’s Presna District Court remanded Zhukov in custody until September 27. Currently jailed in Matrosskaya Tishina Remand Prison.

212-6

Kirill Zhukov
28, studied physics, engineering, and psychology at university
Arrested: August 4, 2019
Currently jailed in Remand Prison No. 4.

212-7

Daniil Konon
22, student, Bauman School
Arrested: August 3, 2019
Charges: Russian Criminal Code Article 212.2
Currently jailed in Matrosskaya Tishina Remand Prison.

212-8

Yevgeny Kovalenko
48, railroad security guard
Arrested: August 2, 2019
Charges: Russian Criminal Code Article 212.2 and Article 318
On August 5, the court remanded Kovalenko in custody for two months. He and his legal counsel will appeal the ruling at a hearing scheduled to take place at Moscow City Court, Room 327, at 11:10 a.m. on August 22.

212-9

Alexei Minyaylo
34, entrepreneur, volunteer
Arrested: August 2, 2019
Charges: Russian Criminal Code Article 212.2
Currently jailed in Matrosskaya Tishina Remand Prison.

212-10

Ivan Podkopayev
25, technician
Arrested: August 2, 2019
Charges: Russian Criminal Code Article 212
Currently jailed in Matrosskaya Tishina Remand Prison.

212-11

Samariddin Radzhabov
21, construction worker
Arrested: August 2, 2019
Charges: Russian Criminal Code Article 212, Article 30.3 (“Preparations for a crime, and attempted crimes”), Article 318.1
Remanded in custody until September 27. Currently jailed in Matrosskaya Tishina Remand Prison.

212-12

Sergei Fomin
36, self-employed
Arrested: August 8, 2019
Charges: Russian Criminal Code Article 212.2

Valery Kostenok
20, student, Moscow State University of Design and Technology
Arrested: August 12, 2019
Charges: Russian Criminal Code Article 212.2. Kostenok is accused of tossing two empty plastic bottles towards the police on July 27.
Currently jailed in Remand Prison No. 5 (Vodnik).

Our job is protecting innocent people from the lawlessness of Russia’s law enforcement agencies.

Our Team
We are a pressure group, established by activists, and friends and relatives of people who were detained by police in the aftermath of grassroots protests during July and August 2019 in order to coordinate assistance to protesters charged with felonies.

Our goal is to help the people arrested in the Article 212 Case and their families and friends, publicize the criminal prosecution of the protesters, and encourage other forms of solidarity and support.

We want to make everyone recognize there was no “riot” on the streets of Moscow on July 27, 2019.

We seek the release of everyone wrongfully prosecuted by law enforcement and the courts.

We want to see human rights honored and observed.

We are:

Armen Aramyan, graduate student at the Higher School of Economics, editor of the independent student magazine DOXA
Alexandra Krylenkova, civil rights activist
Nikita Ponarin, student at the Higher School of Economics, grassroots activist
Roman Kiselyov, civil rights activist
Maria Chernykh, co-founder, Verstak Design Bureau

And many, many others.

How Can I Help?

Sign the petition on the Article 212 Case, as launched by Novaya Gazeta on Change.org.
People in jail are cut off from the outside world. Letters are nearly their only connection to life, so you can write letters to the prisoners. If you don’t want to write and send a paper letter, you can send an electronic letter via FSIN-Pismo and RosUznik.
We are recruiting volunteers and organizing the systematic delivery of care packages to each prisoner in our chat room on Telegram.
Attend court hearings in the case: this is a really good way to support the prisoners. We will be publishing the schedule on Facebook, VK, and Telegram, as well as on this website.
If you want to join the campaign and you have ideas and the energy to support the prisoners and their loved ones, write to us on our chatbot.

What About Money?
Prisoners of the Article 212 Case is a volunteer project. We realize, however, that the people jailed in remand prisons need care packages, and their families need assistance. This costs money, sometimes at short notice, and that is why we are launching a campaign fundraiser in the coming days.

Our support of the Article 212 Case prisoners and their loved ones would be impossible without our friends from OVD Info, Moscow Helsinki Group, and Team 29.

You can contact the project team on our chatbot.

Design
Visual identity: Sergei Tidzhiev
Website: Irina Nikolaeva

Source: delo212.ru. Translated by the Russian Reader