Press Release, 16.12.2015

A trial on Sergei Mitrokhin case will be held on 18 December at 10:00. YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin was detained on 12 December at an action in defence of the Russian Constitution.

Sergei Mitrokhin is charged with violation of Article 19.3 of the Administrative Violations Code (disobedience to a lawful order of a police officer) envisaging an administrative arrest for up to 15 days.

According to the Interfax information agency, the Tverskoy District Court returned 10 case of the activists detained on the 12th of December back to the police for their revision, however, the case of Sergei Mitrokhin was not among them.

There has been no information on the hearings on Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko and Igor Bakirov cases. The court returned the files on Grigory Semyonov and Stanislav Belyansky to the police for revision.

Mitrokhin, Antonov-Ovseyenko and Bakirov are also charged with violation of Article 20.2 of the Administrative Violations Code (participation in unsanctioned mass actions). The hearings on these cases will be held on 21 December 21, time will be confirmed additionally.

On the Russian Constitution Day, the 12th of December, YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin, Anton Antonov-Oveseyenko, head of YABLOKO community liaison office of the Moscow YABLOKO, Grigory Semyonov, deputy chairman of the Moscow YABLOKO, party activists Igor Bakirov and Stanislav Belyansky and other activists were arrested during an action in defence of the Constitution. Two of the detainees, Stanislav Beliansky and Grigory Semyonov, were kept in police for 48 hours.

Sergei Mitrokhin and YABLOKO activists stood in pickets in Pushkin Square on the Constitution Day. Participants of the action were holding posters with the slogan resembling that of Soviet human rights activists who came on this very square 50 years ago, on December 5, 1965: “Respect Our Constitution!” Activists replaced each other, passing the poster from hand to hand. Thus, the action could not be considered as a mass action it was not a mass action, but one-person picketing which does not require any permissions from the authorities.

Andrei Babushkin, member of the Presidential Council for Civil Society Development and Human Rights issued a statement where he called the case against the defenders of the Constitution unlawful.

The hearings will take place in the Tverskoy District Court on December 18 at 10:00 (address: Tzvetnoi Bulvar 25A).