A trial was held on April 22 in Oktyabrsky district court of Arkhangelsk. At issue in this trial was the claim that the city administration illegally banned the demonstration that was planned to be held on April 25 at 12 PM. The claim was laid by the leader of the Moyo Zhilyo (My Domicile) group Vasiliy Pozdeev who was one of the coordinators of the demonstration. An Oborona’s activist was present at the proceeding and reports that severe political pressure the judge was apparent. The judge didn’t even let the claimant ask the city administration representatives questions and overall demonstrated an absolute disinterest to the whole process. As a result, the claim was found groundless.

On April 28, three members of the Duma (Sergey Markov–United Russia, Mikhail Yemelyanov–Just Russia, and Pavel Tarakanov–LDPR) drafted a law that will further restrict the freedom of assembly of Russian citizens. The most important changes are the following:

1. Protest actions involving cars will have to be organized in the same menner as regular demonstrations and pickets. It means that any car owner driving his car with a blue bucket on its top, a witty slogan on a window or even with a ribbon fixed on a rear-view mirror can be prosecuted for the “public order offense” (paragraph 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation).

2. Citizens that once have violated this article won’t be eligible to organize public protest activities for one year, so their civil rights will be disqualified with no judicial sentence. Even in the criminal law, this civil rights disqualification can be applied only upon judge’s decision as an extra mechanism of restraint for felons. The explanation of this step is pretty simple: once you dare to protest, you’d better shut up and keep off any public activity.

3. Now the whole protest process will be based on the effectively permission-based system (as opposed to the notification-based system stated in the Constitution): it will be forbidden even to mention the place for a planned action without the authorities’ consent. And since the delaying tactics of the officials are rather usual, the compliance with this law will simply make most of public actions pointless: even if the administration lets you hold your protest, there’ll be no time left to let people know about its venue.

This document contains some other, not so important changes (e.g., the authorities will have to reply within 3 working days instead of 3 calendar days).

In fact, this amendments won’t change the situation drastically, they will just synchronize the legislation with current situation. I’d like to spare these so-called deputies from excessive efforts and to suggest a single amendment to the paragraph 31 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation that would solve their problems:

Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to gather peacefully, without weapons, and to hold meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets upon the decision of the Government of the Russian Federation.

By Oleg Kozlovsky, Oborona’s Moscow branch coordinator

April 5, 2010: Today our coordinator Oleg Kozlovsky was finally acquitted by Tverskoy district court of Moscow. Kozlovsky was groundlessly incriminated taking part in an illegal public demonstration during the action run by the Strategy 31 campaign on October 31, 2009 at the Triumfalnaya Square in Moscow. He was detained while tweeting about the situation on the square on order of some police bigwig, and then despite apparently faked up evidence and judicial violations the judge Olga Zaytseva (infamous for prosecution of many opposition activists) found him guilty.

Oleg Kozlovsky managed to get this decision officially recalled only 5 months later, and now the court document states that the evidences of his guilt were faked up by the “unidentified individuals” and that “therefore there is no possibility to examine the case properly due to serious judicial violations”.

Arkhangelsk, April 4th: a street picket was held by the activists of the local Oborona branch and the People’s Democrat Union in front of the city’s recruiting office. The purpose of the action was to promote transition to the voluntary military service from the obligatory one; leaflets on the alternative civilian service were also distributed at the action.

There were lots of policemen (even their local head) even though the picket was legal. Perhaps, this can be explained by some past events: two years ago someone tried to set this office on fire, and about a year ago a few members of a subculture held there an illegal street protest when one of their friends was recruited.

A fact worth noticing: the Head of Arkhangelsk Military Recruiting Office showed up and asked the street activists to share their opinion about the problems regarding military and alternative civilian service. It may well be connected with the military commission group from Moscow that is now inspecting the state of affairs in Arkhangelsk.

April 10: “the unique monument to the unique person” was opened in Arkhangelsk by young activists. This “unique person” is the governor of Arkhangelsk region Ilya Mikhalchuk, and the fact that the monument was made of cardboard isn’t just a random coincidence: Mr. Mikhalchuk was very proud of the rapid cardboard industry development in his region (its production has quadrupled in recent years). Unfortunately, there’s nothing else he could brag about except for a draconian public utilities tariff increase, so that was actually the main reason of setting up the monument which was destroyed pretty soon after its inauguration. It’s also necessary to mention that one of the speakers at the ceremony was incriminated with public disorder.

Mr. Mikhalchuk was invited to the ceremony but he didn’t show up either for modesty or for being afraid of talking with citizens–we actually don’t know the exact reason.

April 5: young activists held several independent pickets at the main street of Saint Petersburg with the slogan “Fight extremists, not activists!” The action lasted about an hour and to everybody’s surprise local police didn’t interfere.

After multiple acts of terrorism occurred in Moscow subway on March 29, 2010 the Federal Security Service (domestic security agency of Russia) raised a question of gaining extra competences. Unfortunately, instead of tracking terrorists and defending the citizens from their activity police and special services spend their resources on fighting protesting civilians with OMON riot police, intentionally confusing NGOs with extremists.

The protest action team consisted of the activists of Oborona, the youth section of the Yabloko Party and the Russian Social Democrat Youth Union.

You can now read more on Oborona in English. We have translated the Oborona FAQ and contacts pages. Now you can access all Oborona’s English-language resources via the English Index page.

Thanks to Lena for the brilliant translation!

Federal Migration Service raided a meeting of youth civil activsts in Ryazan today. Participants from Oborona, Memorial, Avtonomnoe Deystvie, YHRM, Free Radicals, Russian LGBT Network met to exchange expertise in public civil campaigns at Solotcha Hotel. FMS officers arrived there in the morning with an “extraordinary check”, disrupted the workshop and demanded some documents from guests from Czech human rights NGO People in Need.

In early August Oborona will hold a summer training camp Partizan-2009. The event will take place at Volga river and will gather members of Oborona and other youth democratic organizations as well as socially and politically active youth from Moscow and regions of Russia.

Trainings, workshops and lectures on youth political and civic activity under authoritarian regime will be held for the camp’s participants. A discussion will take place on August 9, dedicated to the 10th anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s rule: he was declared Boris Yeltsin’s successor on this day in 1999. Team-building and educational games will also be organized for the participants and guests of the camp. The event is funded by its participants.

This will be the second such event of Oborona. A two-day training camp Partizan-2008 was held last August. This year’s camp will be longer, have more participants and for the first time, journalists are invited to see it.

Journalists and guests who wish to visit the camp should write to camp@oborona.org or info@oborona.org.

You can now read Oborona’s main news in English!