21st of April Aleksei "Shkobar" Olesinov, anti-fascist arrested 5th of November with bogus charges of having incited a fight in a club in August 2008, was slapped one year prison sentence in a kangaroo court. This although defense presented a video which proved that Olesinov attacked nobody, although both club owners and security whom Olesinov allegedly assaulted denied that they had any claims against Olesinov, they even did not appeared in the court. Moreover, police who grabbed people randomly that night in August had already fined Olesinov for a misdemeanor he did not committed, thus this was already the second sentence for the same "crime" Olesinov, who has no criminal record, allegedly committed.

Luckily, judge only gave Olesinov one year instead of five years demanded by the prosecution. Aleksei said that although he has been sick in prison, one year sentence will be no big deal for him. But obviously this was still a miscarriage of justice, as Olesinov had not committed any crime whatsoever and a reason to protest. Really Olesinov is in prison only because he is an anti-fascist activist, and because Russian courts are tightly controlled by the state - they have no chance to release people who are remanded, as that would automatically result a criminal charge against police who arrested them.

Already for a week, Moscow police had been vigilance - originally verdict was expected to be given 14th of April, but as anonymous anti-fascist group called for organisation of attacks against "banks, police stations and expensive stores" (call in Russian here http://free-olesinov.livejournal.com/612.html), authorities panicked and passed verdict to monday 20th week - people who went to support Olesinov 14th of April, were arrested when they were just exiting from metro, and slapped with fabricated misdemeanor charges of "illegal demonstration". Whole region was packed with OMON riot police.

Soon authorities realised, that it would be a fiasco to send anti-fascist to jail in Hitler's birthday, and eventually verdict was passed to Tuesday 21st. There was also a heavy riot police presence all around the city, not only due to anti-fascist plans but also to prevent possible Nazi provocations which at times happen around 20th of April.

However anti-fascists managed to gather following high level of conspiracy, and to mass more than people to Mendeleyevskaya metro station from where a march towards infamous Butyrka prison around 9:10 PM (where Nestor Makhno once spent almost a decade), where Olesinov is held. Scanning "Freedom to Aleksey Olesinov", "Antifa", "No Pasaran" and other anarchist and anti-fascist slogans, behind a big banner "More there will be repression - more rage there will be in our resistance - We do not want peace without social justice - freedom to Aleksei Olesinov!", march made it to the Butyrka prison, where it turned back and to the Lesnaya street in an improvised move. At the crossing, plain clothes cops tried to snatch someone, who resisted succesfully. However in Lesnaya street around 9:25 PM march was stopped by a bus of OMON, who eventually managed to arrest 80 people. Some people were beaten up, one participator had his jaw broken he was hospitalised. During arrest, a crowd of people was pushed to desk of a vegetable vendor which got broken, and now police is spreading lies that demonstrators were breaking shop windows.

As usual, arrested people were threatened and stolen some of their property by the police. Some people were released the same night, some were forced to stay for the court the same day. When writing this (9 PM local time 22nd of April), it is still not clear if everyone have been released.

More photos: http://ingahomer.livejournal.com/46909.html (also source of photos at this article).
http://4brokenheart.livejournal.com/274258.html
http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=alexei+olesinov&c=images
http://visualrian.ru/lists/item/33802

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/v/uwESsuRl0SM

More articles in Russian:

http://www.avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2425
http://www.avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2424

http://maskodagama.livejournal.com/590273.html
http://ru.indymedia.org/newswire/display/21795/index.php
http://ru.indymedia.org/newswire/display/21794/index.php
http://piter.indymedia.ru/node/6260
http://piter.indymedia.ru/node/6257
http://community.livejournal.com/ru_antifa/

There were also solidarity graffiti actions in Kiev:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRMJAUi7z0k
And in Barnaul of Siberia last week:
http://www.avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2412
And a FNB solidarity action in Simferopol of Ukraine:
http://www.avtonom.org/index.php?nid=2422