Natalya Zamorskaya, head of staff of Navalny’s colleague Violetta Grudina, was detained at the Murmansk airport on suspicion of drug trafficking

At the Murmansk airport, officers of the line police department detained Natalya Zamorskaya, the head of the election headquarters of Violetta Grudina, who previously headed the Murmansk headquarters of Alexei Navalny. About it informs OVD-Info. Now Grudina is nominated to the local City Council.

Zamorskaya flew to Murmansk from Moscow. According to the security officials, the activist was transporting drugs.

They searched Zamorskaya’s things, while the police did not allow her to film the procedure. After the search, the activist was released.

The day before, the court appointed Violetta Grudina a preventive measure in the form of a recognizance not to leave, her house was searched. A criminal case was initiated against Grudina under the “sanitary article”.

She was detained on August 1 immediately after leaving the hospital, where she was forcibly hospitalized for treatment for coronavirus.

In mid-July, the Oktyabrskiy District Court of Murmansk satisfied the Rospotrebnadzor’s claim for the forced hospitalization of Grudina. According to Rospotrebnadzor, Grudina allegedly violated the self-isolation regime. As noted by the human rights organization Agora, on July 12, the ex-head of Navalny’s Murmansk headquarters provided the court with a negative test for COVID-19, and a medical worker invited by Rospotrebnadzor said that she did not need hospitalization, but the court did not take this fact into account.

The former head of Navalny’s headquarters herself associates such attention of law enforcement agencies and Rospotrebnadzor with the fact that she intends to participate in the election of deputies to the Murmansk City Council.

Sternum and her supporters have faced pressure on several occasions. On June 29 and July 8, police detained Grudina’s campaign headquarters volunteers for posting leaflets.

Record low ratings of United Russia force the authorities under various pretexts to not allow independent candidates before participating in elections at all levels. Both exotic methods, such as forced hospitalization, and criminal cases are used. According to Golos experts, since 2016, when the previous elections of deputies to the State Duma were held, the situation with the right of citizens to be elected has deteriorated markedly: in 2020 alone, fifty new criminal structures were introduced, temporarily depriving Russians of their passive suffrage after the removal or cancellation of a criminal record.