Press Release, 21.04.2021

Photo: Oleg Rodin / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Oleg Rodin, Chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Yabloko, appealed to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Nizhny Novgorod region with a demand for the immediate release of Nizhny Novgorod residents detained on April 21, on the eve of the action of solidarity with Alexei Navalny.

In his appeal, Oleg Rodin demands to immediately take the response measures envisaged by law in order to restore and protect the violated rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of Andrei Krayev, Efim Khazanov, Stanislav Dmitrievsky and Roman Timchenko and issue an order on their release, and also declare the actions of police officers on the administrative detention of the aforementioned Nizhny Novgorod residents unlawful.

“There are no grounds for their detention, as the police officers have drawn up a protocol [of an alleged violation] – it means that it is necessary to release these citizens, and not keep them in the police department until the trial. The Supreme Court reminded the police a year ago that detention is possible if there are sufficient grounds to believe that they can abscond from justice,” Oleg Rodin emphasised.

On the afternoon of 21 April, Andrei Kraev, Chairman of the Control and Auditing Commission of the Nizhny Novgorod Yabloko, Efim Khazanov, a Russian physicist and academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Stanislav Dmitrievsky, activist in the field of protection of the historic urban environment,  and citizen Roman Timchenko were taken to police department No. 2 of Nizhny Novgorod and then detained. Police officers drew up protocols on an administrative offense In relation to them under Article 20.2 Part 2 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation (violation of the established procedure for organising or holding a meeting, rally, demonstration, procession or picketing). Despite this, a decision on the administrative detention was made. The decision on the administrative detention is considered by the Nizhniy Novgorod branch of Yabloko to be unlawful and unfounded.