Newsletters / Weekly Human Rights Report
Hello everyone! It’s the Human Rights Team again. This week we’ve been in court alongside our defendants on trail for their participation in peaceful demonstrations. We’ve also been pursuing appeals for previous cases. We’ve included some of the (depressingly predictable) results in this newsletter.
We’re defending both your and our rights in police stations and in the courts, as well as appealing against unjust rulings. All of this is only possible with your support, so thank you for being a part of the team!
Moscow City Court upholds verdict on Shpakov for March 26 case
Moscow July 17
The Moscow City Court rejected the appeal of the defence of Alexander Shpakov, who was accused of an assault on a policeman at a demonstration on March 26. On May 24, the Tverskaya District Court declared the 39-year-old carpenter from Lubertsy guilty of assault on a policeman at a demonstration on March 26th. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Our lawyer, Sergei Badamshin, appealed against the prison sentence in favour of a conditional one and indicated that the court did not fully take into account all mitigating circumstances. This includes having to support his daughter, who is a first year university student, and his disabled mother. The prosecutor’s office declared the verdict lawful, and it was upheld.
Moscow City Court rejects appeal of Open Russia’s Maria Baronova, fined for organizing “Enough” demonstration
Moscow July 18
On July 18, the Moscow City Court rejected the appeal of lawyer Sergei Badamshin in defence of Maria Baronova, the head of the Moscow branch of “Open Russia”, who was fined for organizing the “Enough” demonstration. On May 16 Maria Baronova was fined a sum of 20,000 rubles for organizing the mass delivery of letters to the Presidential Administration.
Baronova was found guilty of violating the permitted procedures for event organisers. The “Enough” demonstrations were held on April 29 right across Russia. Participants delivered letters to the president demanding him not to run for a fourth presidential term in 2018. The Moscow demonstration, organized by Maria Baronova, was held without any detentions.
British Otrkrytaya Rossiya appeals ‘undesirable organisation’ ruling
Moscow July 20
Open Russia lawyer Sergei Badamshin has filed an appeal against the Attorney General’s Office and the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation at the Tverskaya District Court, Moscow. He asked them to recognize the decision of the Prosecutor General’s Office and the inclusion of the British Otrkrytaya Rossiya in the list of ‘undesirable organizations’ as unlawful, and asked that they be removed from the list.
On April 26 2017 a row of organisations including Otkrytaya Rossiya and the Institute of Modern Russia were officially declared ‘undesirable organisations’ by the Russian Attorney General, making their activity de facto illegal in the Russian Federation. Badamshin showed that the Attorney General’s decision violated both the Russian constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Constitutional Court refuses to consider appeal against extremism ruling for Anton Nosik
The Russian Constitutional Court has refused to consider Sergei Badamshin’s appeal of the verdict against blogger Anton Nosik, who was fined the substantial sum of 300,000 Rubles. He was sentenced for ‘inciting hatred against Syrians’ in a post the ‘Live Journal’ entitled “Erase Syria from the face of the earth” the theses from which he later repeated on air for radio station “Echo of Moscow”.