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On 4 July, the Central District Court of Barnaul, a major city in Siberia, sentenced civil activist Pavel Kalashnik to two days’ administrative arrest after he participated in a picket several days earlier. Kalashnik himself told OVD-Info about this.

He has now been released. On 29 June, Kalashnik took part in an authorised rally in support of protesters in the Republic of Altai who oppose local authorities’ decision to abolish village councils.

As reported by RusNews, on 3 July he was summoned to the prosecutor’s office to explain one of his comments posted online. After that, he could not be reached for several hours. In the end, Kalashnik was held in the prosecutor’s office until 1 p.m. the following day.

While at the prosecutor’s office, a protocol was drawn up against the activist for inciting hatred or enmity (Article 20.3.1 of the Administrative Code). The grounds for this were a comment he made on social media in December 2023 about communists, which has since been deleted. A linguistic analysis determined that this comment constituted an incitement to social discord towards the social group ‘communists.’

Presumably, pressure on Kalashnik is linked to his activism, since just a few days before his arrest he had successfully agreed with the authorities to hold another picket on municipal reform in Altai.

  • In late June, the parliament of the Republic of Altai passed a bill introducing a single-tier local self-government system and abolishing village councils. Before and after the law was passed, the region saw a number of protests, including a rally of four thousand people in Gorno-Altaysk, the republic’s capital (link).
  • In mid-June, eight residents of Altai had protocols drawn up against them over a rally at the Chike-Taman Pass in Ongudaysky District (link). In early July, protocols were also drawn up against two more local residents over a video message addressed to the regional authorities (link).