Press Release, 5.02.2021

Photo: photobeginner/depositphotos

In Kazan, the opposition managed to receive the consent of the authorities for a rally “against detentions and repressions and for the changes in the electoral laws for the State Duma elections”. The rally will take place in the centre of Kazan, opposite the Kazan Kremlin, on February 14. The rally will begin at 12:00.

The organisers of the rally are Ruslan Zinatulli, Chairman of the Tatarstan branch of Yabloko, Marcel Shamsutdinov from PARNAS and Vladimir Kolodtsev, a representative of the Left Front.

The city administration stressed that protesters must to comply with sanitary requirements and maintain a distance between the participants of the rally of 1.5 m. during the event. The permission is given for a rally of 200 participants.

“200 people is the maximum number for public events in the open air during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the executive authorities explained to us,” Ruslan Zinatullin said. He believes that if a larger number of citizens gather for the rally, “they, as usual, will stand outside the fence”. The Yabloko representative hopes that there should be no sanctions for the participants in this case.

The organisers emphasise that the reason for the rally were the tough actions of the security forces during the dispersal of unpermitted rallies in support of Alexei Navalny, which took place in Kazan, as in other cities of Russia, on January 23 and 31. In both cases, the protesters tried to enter the territory of the Kazan Kremlin, but the police did not allow them. At the same time, more than 600 people were detained. Detention of several dozen people near the building of the Academy of Sciences of Tatarstan caused particular indignation of citizens, when the police, according to the videos, forced the detained (among them, for example, was a food delivery man) to squat in the snow, and then they commanded the detained to lay face down in the snow. Most of the protesters received fines after spending one or two nights in the police department. Several people were arrested, including employees of the local headquarters of Alexei Navalny, as well as the girl who posted the video about the protests on TikTok.