Беспредел власти

This time around there's both good news and bad news, so lets start with the good ones.

Maxim ”Hadad” Smolnikov released from remand in custody

The family of Maksim Smolnikov needs financial support to cover lawyer costs and the transfer to a pre-trial detention center. If you want to help, please transfer money to the ABC Moscow PayPal (abc-msk@riseup.net) or if you are in Russia directly to the family account:  4274320068140352.

Ilya Romanov needs support for rehabilitation

Ilya Romanov has been an activist in the anarchist movement since 1987. He was sentenced to prison twice, for 10 years in Ukraine in 00’s and 7 years in Russia in the last decade. In 2019 he almost died as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage. Due to the delay in the medical intervention, he lost the capacity to move the right side of his body. 

We got in touch with several anarchist comrades to talk about the recent protests on the streets of different cities in Russia: looked into political events of 2020 and how they brought people to the situation with protests.

With the comrades we managed to clarify if Navalny is a nazi and the whole protest should be ignored by the anarchists or leftists. And of course we talked about anarchists and their participation in protest movement.

Listen to our radio stream:

For over three months, people in Belarus have been fighting against the authoritarian regime. In 26 years, dictator Lukashenko has built a system aimed at suppressing any political life. The coronavirus and a number of economic problems have greatly changed what is happening in the country. In a few months, Belarusians have learned to self-organize. The presidential elections provoked a wave of the largest protest in the country's history! But the tyrant does not want to give up his throne. At least 5 people were killed (some died under strange circumstances).

Azerbaijani anarchist Giyas Ibrahimov was detained by security services for alleged anti-war statements yesterday.

In the now-deleted live video he posted on his social media account,  Ibrahimov broadcasted security forces entering his flat in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku and refusing to tell him why he was being detained.

Network Trial defendant Viktor Filinkov tells a joke: “A programmer, a businessman, and an industrial climber planned to overthrow the government.”

The Penza Case in Petersburg: Closing Statements
Mediazona
June 18, 2020

On Saturday 11th of April, relatives took Ilya Romanov, anarchist prisoner from LPU-21. Prosecutor did not appeal decision of the court of Zubovo-Polyanski of Republic of Mordovia, which has ordered to release Romanov for basis of his health. We congratulate Ilya, and everyone who was fighting for his release from prison!

Court had decided 31st of March that Romanov should be released, as he was paralyzed in the colony after stroke. 

We must not forget the anarchists and anti-fascists suffering repression in Russia! We are calling for people to take action of all forms to express support for these prisoners, to protest the prison system, and to spread information about the use of torture as an instrument of repression in Russia.

A Russian court has issued harsh sentences to seven antifascist and anarchist activists in a controversial domestic terrorism case marred by claims that investigators tortured the defendants to elicit confessions.

On 27th July, my friend Vladislav Barabanov took part in the rally for fair elections and permission of the independent candidates in Moscow. He was one of 1,500 detainees at this action and one of 13 people accused of criminal offense.

"Article 212 case " or "the Moscow case" is another example of lawlessness in Russia's everyday life. We wish to tell the whole world of people dear to us getting battered and imprisoned for their active citizenship.

In Moscow, at the end of August 10, plainclothes police officers arrested the anarchist Alexei Polikhovich on his way home from Russia’s largest opposition demonstration since 2011. A local Moscow court formally charged Alexei with “petty hooliganism” and sentenced him to 13 days in jail. The arrest stemmed from a combative and passionate speech Alexei gave to thousands in Moscow that day.

On April 19, the North Caucasian District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don convicted an anarchist from Evpatoria Yevgeny Karakashev in the case of Calls for Committing of Terrorist Activity in the Russian social network "Vkontakte".

9 april 2019 the court trial in the case of the “anarchist terrorist community” Network got underway in St. Petersburg. Viktor Filinkov, a 24-year-old programmer, and Yuli Boyarshinov, a 27-year-old industrial climber, have been charged with involvement in Network.

Lawyers for Viktor Filinkov and Yuly Boyarshinov, two of the defendants in the “network case”, are now preparing for their trial. The defendants in the case are Russian anti-fascists who were arrested – and tortured by security services officers – in St Petersburg and Penza last year. They are accused of a so-called terrorist plot – a prosecution denounced by Russian human rights organisations as a frame-up.

Anarchist Azat Miftakhov, a mathematics and mechanics graduate student at Moscow State University,  has been remanded in custody until March 7, 2019.

On February 1, 2019, officers of the FSB, the Russian state security apparatus descended from the KGB, arrested a dozen people in the latest wave of their campaign of repression against accused anarchists throughout the country. After brutally torturing them over the following 24 hours in order to force them to agree to incriminating statements, they released 11 of them.