Muscovite was arrested for 25 days for a solo picket in support of Memorial

The Presnensky District Court of Moscow decided to arrest for 25 days Aleksey Belenkin, who came out with a one-man picket in support of International Memorial on 25 November.

How informs Mediazon, Belenkin was found guilty of repeated violation of the rules of the action (part 8 of article 20.2 of the Administrative Code). His lawyer explained that the activist was involved in taking part in the action in 2021.

On November 25, Belenkin stood with a banner “We are Memorial” in front of the Supreme Court, where the case on the lawsuit of the Prosecutor General’s Office on the liquidation of “International Memorial” was being considered. On the way from the court, activist Konstantin Kotov was also detained. He was arrested for nine days on charges of organizing an uncoordinated event (part 2 of article 20.2 of the Administrative Code), reported at Memorial.

November 11 Prosecutor General’s Office applied to the Supreme Court demanding the liquidation of Memorial and its structural units for “systematic violations of the legislation on“ foreign agents ”. In addition, expertise discovered linguistic and psychological signs of justifying extremism and terrorism in the register of political prisoners maintained by the Memorial Human Rights Center, which is part of the International Memorial. The expert opinion, as it turned out later, was drawn up mathematics teacher Natalia Kryukova and translator Alexander Tarasov. Previously, they wrote such expert opinions on a number of high-profile cases, acting as religious scholars, sexologists, culturologists, social anthropologists, linguists and legal scholars.

The Council of Europe, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, RAS academicians, more than 70 figures of world culture, Nobel Peace Prize laureates, ex-President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev and editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov. And the writer Lyudmila Petrushevskaya protesting against the authorities’ desire to liquidate Memorial refused from the title of laureate of the State Prize.

The Kremlin said that the International Memorial “has had problems for a long time” with the observance of Russian legislation.