550 thousand rubles were collected from Navalny’s associates for the work of the Penza police on the weekend of January 23

In Penza, the Pervomaisky District Court ruled to recover 550,000 rubles from three supporters of opposition leader Alexei Navalny as compensation for the work of Interior Ministry employees on the day off. On January 23, the security forces lost their rest, as they were mobilized by their superiors in connection with a protest action.

According to the lawyer of the defendants, Alexander Fedulov, compensation for the salaries of the police who worked for the action and the gasoline used by the police cars was recovered from his clients. The lawyer will appeal the decision of the court, informs “Apology of Protest”.

The regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported on the lawsuit against the opposition on April 13. The police sought payment of 883,634 rubles. Work on weekends in the department was estimated at 838,402 rubles, the cost of gasoline at 45,232 rubles. The police planned to reimburse these expenses within the framework of an administrative case instituted under Part 2 of Art. 20.2. Administrative Code (organization or holding of a public event without filing a notification about it in accordance with the established procedure). Later, the requirements were reduced to 528,089 rubles.

The claims were initially addressed to the coordinator of Navalny’s local headquarters, Anton Strunin, and also, according to him, to the random person Yuri Tsepaev, who repost about the action on January 23.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Strunin and Tsepaev are organizers of an uncoordinated rally of 750 people, information about which they published on the social network VKontakte. For this, Strunin was arrested for five days, and Tsepaev – for a day.

The security forces filed lawsuits against the opposition because of overtime work in other regions, for example, in Kirovskaya, Novosibirsk, Yaroslavl, Chelyabinsk, Omsk and Kemerovo regions, as well as in Bashkiria. The amount of the policemen’s claims exceeded 6 million rubles.

On January 23 and 31, as well as on February 2, rallies were held throughout Russia in support of the arrested opposition politician Alexei Navalny. The authorities immediately responded to the protests with massive repression, including searches and mass administrative arrests. In total, more than 11 thousand people were detained in connection with the actions in support of Navalny. In Moscow alone, over 1250 people were subjected to administrative arrest in a month for taking part in protests. Also, about 90 criminal cases were initiated: about attacks on security officials, hooliganism, damage to property, blocking roads, violation of sanitary and epidemiological rules and involvement of minors in illegal actions.

In June, the Moscow City Court recognized the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), the Foundation for the Protection of Citizens’ Rights and the headquarters of Alexei Navalny as extremist organizations. A law was also passed prohibiting those involved in the work of extremist organizations from participating in elections.