Press Release, 29.12.2015

Today, Tverskoi Distict Court, Moscow, sentenced Sergei Mitrokhin to a RUR 1,000 fine for a picket in defence of the Russian Constitution. Sergei Mitrokhin was detained at an action in defence of the Constitution on 12 December, the Russian Constituion Day.

Mitrokhin was charged with violation of Article 19.3 of the Administrative Violations Code (disobedience to the lawful demands of a police officer).

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 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.

YABLOKO’s Antonov-Ovseyenko and Bakirov who were also arrested at the action have not yet got a subpoena to court.

The files on Grigory Semyonov and Stanislav Belyansky were returned by court to the police department Tverskoye for revision.