Amnesty International: Hundreds held in Russian election protests

www.amnesty.org

5 December 2011

Hundreds held in Russian election protests

The Russian authorities must release all of the peaceful protesters detained over the weekend amid allegations of fraud in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, Amnesty International said today.

More than 300 opposition activists and bystanders were reportedly arrested by police in cities across Russia amid protests against alleged manipulation of votes by presidential candidate Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.

“These disgraceful detentions highlight once again the failure of the Russian government to respect its citizens’ rights to freedom of expression and assembly,” said Nicola Duckworth, Director of Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia Programme.

“The vast majority of those arrested since Sunday have sought merely to peacefully express their protest. They are prisoners of conscience and they must be released immediately.”

Across Russia police moved swiftly to pre-empt and disperse potential protests. In Moscow, opposition parties called for demonstrations on Red Square and Triumfalnaya Square against election fraud. Police responded by detaining potential demonstrators and onlookers.

Several well known opposition activists were detained at home or on their way to demonstrations, with some being sentenced to up to 10 days of administrative detention.

“Our staff in Moscow watched as several peaceful people were whisked off the street by police without any provocation,” said Nicola Duckworth.

“Others didn’t even make it to the protests and were instead seized pre-emptively.”

Among the opposition politicians detained is Andrei Gorin from the Other Russia, who was reportedly beaten and sentenced to 10 days’ administrative detention.

Left Front activist Sergey Udaltsov was arrested by plain clothes police officers on his way to a demonstration and has been sentenced to five days’ administrative detention.

Amnesty International is also concerned about the harassment of Golos, an independent election monitoring NGO.

Golos head Lilya Shibanova was detained at Moscow airport and her computer was confiscated, with police claiming its software may pose a security risk.

The NGO was fined for allegedly violating its obligations as an independent election monitor, while its website also came under attack from hackers.

Victoria Lomasko: The Trial against Golos

Editor’s Note. Today, December 4, is election day in the Russian Federation. As of 4:00 pm Moscow Time, the web sites of the following organizations and media outlets were not functioning, allegedly due to massive cyber attacks: Golos Association, Echo of Moscow, Bolshoi Gorod, Map of Violations, The New Times, and Slon.Ru. Zaks.Ru, LiveJournal, and Russian News Agency were also reported experiencing problems today and in recent days.

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soglyadatay.livejournal.com/104808.html

The Trial against Golos

On December 2, the court hearing in the case of the Golos Association took place. An employee of the organization asked me to make drawings of the hearing.

Golos was charged with violating Article 5.5 of the Russian Federation Administrative Code: publication of voter polls and its own election campaign research less than five days before the election.

Judge Svetlana Kalantyr: “[Its] guilt has been wholly proven insofar as the Golos Association published voter polls and its own research less than five days before the elections.”

The reason for the accusation was a banner posted on the Golos web site: when you click on it, you end up on another site: http://www.kartanarusheniy.ru/.

Grigory Melkonyants, deputy executive director of Golos, and defense counsel Ramil Akhmetgaliyev: “The site only contains a link to another site.”

At this site (kartanarusheniy.ru), the Golos Association and Gazeta.Ru [an online newspaper] have created a venue, “Map of Violations,” where voters send information about election campaign violations. It turned out that the United Russia party was involved in nearly all the violations.

The prosecutor’s office argued that the “Map of Violations” had violated voters’ rights.

Prosecutor Yevgenia Umpeleva: “The ‘Map of Violations’ affects the expression of the voters’ will.”

A letter from Vladimir Churov, chairman of the Central Electoral Commission, who has accused Golos of campaigning against United Russia, was grounds for the legal action.

The Golos Association received the subpoena to appear in court at eight o’clock in the evening on December 1, but the hearing had already been scheduled for December 2 at eleven o’clock in the morning. Consequently, defense counsel Ramil Akhmetgaliyev was unable to fully review the 100-page case file and write an appeal.

His verbal appeal for an adjournment due to the lack of time to review the case file and also because of the absence of Lilya Shibanova, director of Golos, who was away on a business trip, was rejected.

Judge Kalantyr: “The company Golos  had sufficient time to prepare its defense.”

Judge Kalantyr: “The attorney’s appeal cannot be considered by the court because it was not notarized in written form.”

The prosecutor also had no time to prepare. Her technical knowledge of “links,” “banners” and “screenshots” amused those attending the hearing.

Prosecutor Umpeleva: “Screenshot is this program that copies into the clipboard.”

Umpeleva, in the hallway of the court building: “I had to make a quick call and find out what a ‘screenshot’ was.”
The prosecutor also said that the west promotes the Russian opposition via Golos.

Since neither the defense counsel nor the prosecutor nor the judge had had an opportunity to thoroughly review the case and did not understand what was happening, the hearing was recessed several times for thirty or forty minutes. During these recesses, the prosecutor escaped to another floor [of the court building] and began calling someone, reporting on the progress of the hearing and asking for further instructions. Journalists attempted to eavesdrop on these conversations and find out what was being said.

The defense counsel said that the presence of the defense at such a hearing was a mere formality insofar as the court did not take its interests into account .

Ramil Akhmetgaliyev: “Any ruling made today will be illegal.”

The hearing lasted from eleven in the morning until seven in the evening.

After a two-hour recess the verdict was announced: the Golos Association was fined 30,000 rubles [approximately 720 euros].

The defense counsel said of the verdict: “The fine is a compromise decision.” He believes that the prosecutor’s office was in such a hurry to put pressure on Golos before the elections that it fabricated the case much too clumsily and was unable to get the court to apply more severe sanctions. He also suggested that the pressure on Golos would continue, which was borne out by developments the following day:

Grigory Melkonyants, deputy executive director of Golos, noted that such verdicts threaten any blogger who has posted an “incorrect” link.