Chronicles of Persecution in Samara

From “For Human Rights,” a Russian NGO led by civil society hero Lev Ponomarev, we offer the attached translation of a newsletter which chronicles the episodes of persecution of protesters and dissidents during the EU-Russia Summit in Samara last week. Below are just some excerpts, download the full document here.

The application for the holding of the “Dissidents March” in Samara was submitted on May 3. The authorities reacted immediately. On the same day, about twenty police officers came to the press conference held by the organizing committee of the March. They copied data from the passports of all those present, including the journalists. The officers probably intended to verify the names of the participants to the event with those included in the lists of disloyal persons. On the 4th of May, at the railway station, the officers from the Directorate for Combating Organized Crime [hereinafter – UBOP] detained Dmitry Treshchanin. He was first delivered to the military registration and enlistment office and then to the oblast clinical hospital. The medical examining board found him fit for the military service. On the 21st of May, Dmitry came up to the recruit reception center; otherwise, he would have a criminal case initiated against him. That day was his little daughter’s third birthday. Reportedly, the draft board had been instructed to pay special attention to Treshchanin. … Since May 9 until today, the organizer of the “Dissidents March” Anastasia Kurt-Adzhiyeva is under outdoor surveillance. Employees of different services repeatedly tried to get into her apartment. In Samara, at two o’clock in the morning of May 9, during the sticking of leaflets with the materials related to the “Dissidents March”, the police patrol service officers detained the citizen of the Republic of Belarus Igor Shchuka and the resident of the city of Orenburg Evgenia Kosourova. They were delivered to the Zheleznodorozhny district police station. The police confiscated all the readership circulation. Up till now, we can not find out where they are kept. For what it’s worth, Igor Shchuka and Evgenia Kosourova are in one of the lock-up wards in Samara. According to the available information, they will have to stay in detention for not less than thirty days. Police refuses to provide any official comments in this respect. May we remind you that they had been detained as far back as the 8th of May in the Zheleznodorozhny district of Samara for the sticking of leaflets with the information on the “Dissidents March”. … On the 10th of May, the organizer of the “Dissidents March” in Samara Anastasia Kurt-Adzhiyeva and Lyudmila Kuzmina (the Association of “GOLOS” appeared on the radio channel of “Echo of Moscow”. After the radio program, they had some problems. As soon as Anastasia came back home, she found out that under her windows there were not less than ten police officers having arranged there a kind of police post. Since yesterday, she has been constantly accompanied by two cars with tinted glasses. On the 10th of May, the camera crew from the Ren-TV channel and the journalist from the “Kommersant” newspaper Pavel Sedakov were detained in Samara. After the interview with Mikhail Gangan, the UBOP officers invited the journalists to drive with them to the police station to have their identities established. Two and a half hours later, they were released. In the evening of the 10th of May, the officers from the UBOP and the “K” department combating crimes in the high-tech sphere came unexpectedly to search the office of the Association of “Golos”. The pretext for the search was the use of unlicensed software – three system blocks were seized. The same pretext was used on the 11th of May, when they came to the editorial office of the newspaper “Novaya Gazeta v Samare” . Here, they also seized all the computers. The police officers did not produce any official papers