Practically, there are very few people in Russia who feel safe being in the vicinity to policemen. The threat is always looming over the heads of people, even over those who have nothing to be punished for. Why do ordinary citizens experience such feelings towards police authorities whose primary role is to protect the rights of the population? Andrei Kuznetsov, a founder of an anonymous bar community and a creator of a mobile application for the defense against police lawlessness, a man who personally has suffered from it, will help us to understand this issue.
In Russia,
you might go out for bread and all of a sudden find yourself guilty of wrong
doings, for example, under article 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian
Federation (drug possession). In June, the entire public rose up in defense for
journalist Ivan Golunov, who had been arrested on the street, planted drugs in
his backpack and accused of drug trafficking. It was exactly this high-profile
case that had huge public resonance: in social networks people started telling
personal stories about similar cases of “plantings”, the media
reviewed the statistics of illegally convicted people under 228 article. This
article is reputed to be “traditionally popular” in Russia, because
it is namely the article under which 92,558 people have been lately imprisoned.
Few people went to prison for a real crime, most of the cases were simply
fabricated. Someone became a “unit” for a good report of the
investigator, others paid the price for their too active civil position. If
there is an act of detention, the most important thing is to inform
someone about it, and to do this is the main problem. The longer you stay
without the assistance of a lawyer, the greater the risk of you being pleaded
guilty.
Andrei Kuznetsov: If you are
detained, you are often prevented from contacts with your relatives and a
lawyer to start the process of defense. In the story of Ivan Golunov the whole
problem was that for 15 hours he was not allowed to use the phone, and during
this time the authorities “neatly” filed up the case. Our button
allows you to report a detention in 10 seconds. The application immediately
identifies the nearest police department by your geolocation, and our operators
contact your representatives and lawyer.
“SLON”
started its activity as a small telegram-chat in which everyone could get free
legal advice. Now it is a legal association with specialists in 7 regions of
Russia, which immediately activates your defense through the “SLON Alarm
button “.
The application
works very simply:
– download
it from the App store or Google play;
– enter your
details;
– if
detained, press the red button.
The service
is absolutely free of charge. If you have your own lawyer, the application
operator will establish connection between him/her and the “SLON”
service and in case of detention he/she, as well as your relatives and any
other persons specified by you in the application will get a signal.
In a
situation that you need a lawyer, the operators contact your guarantor for
contract arrangements.
The data is
stored exclusively on your phone and is transmitted to the server only when the
emergency button is pressed. This is how the app’s users’ personal data is
protected.
This project
involves the protection not only of illegally detained citizens, but also of
those who are really guilty. In Russia, propaganda of “absolute
guilt” is carried out – if a person commits a crime, the police and
society spell an end to his/her life, even if the crime is not related to
cruelty, but, for example, to drugs. Crimes under article 228 refer to moderate
and severe degree of penal value, so the more disclosures of such cases, the
faster the career growth for a policeman will be.
Andrei
Kuznetsov: I am familiar with a case where a person was convicted absolutely
unlawfully, and it was that rare precedent when his innocence was proved and
the judge was even removed from the position. But nevertheless, after that they
put another case on him. It turned out later that this person while being held
in custody had been badly beaten up by another man planted to his cell so that
the guy would finally take the blame under another article. It is clear that it
was necessary for the prosecutor’s office to get rid of “unresolved”
cases; that was the way how they “solved” their professional problem.
So nobody is interested in his truth in court because of drug addiction. The
position is based upon opinions, such as follows: “what a heroin addict
might have dreamed of in a delirium state of mind? – Most probably, of nothing
coherent”. People in our country who use psychoactive and mind-altering
substances are more vulnerable than anyone else: they can be accused of
anything in the world.
“If you
don’t stop – you’re done”
Unfortunately,
most people lose contact with old friends in detention, and even relatives
often turn away from prisoners. It is almost impossible to find a prestigious
job after being released from jail.
In addition
to its legal work, SLON is also fighting against the isolation of former
prisoners from the society. The project provides an opportunity to learn
programming on Android, Java and IOS for ex-imprisonned people. Anyone who
wants to start a new life after prison can contact Andrei in Telegram (@adrium)
and get free access to the courses.
It is well
known that such initiatives as the “SLON alarm button” project are
not welcomed in Russia at all. Andrei told us about how police officers had
chased him and his family. In an extremely provocative manner they insisted on
abortion of his project and demanded to terminate the work of the application
under threat of death.
Andrei Kuznetsov: In October 2018, I started receiving phone calls at two-week intervals. At first, they kept silent, and then step by step they started threatening me with the texts from the series: “If you don’t stop, you’re dead”. After that they figured out the apartment we lived in, hung a picture of a decapitated elephant on the door, and after a while similar leaflets were left on the car. Nevertheless, I didn’t stop the work of the application. The persecution continued. Once, when my mother-in-law Olga Nagorianskaia was returning home in the evening, an unknown person followed her to the elevator and attacked her. He inflicted serious mental and physical damage to her: fright and many bruises. She was later attacked again. My wife Zlata Velikaia was also assaulted. After these incidents, we started randomly renting apartments, changing the area we lived in every month. The first thing I needed to do was to protect my little son and wife. These six months of “hide-and-seek” were such a stress!
We
verified all the facts of persecution in our reports to the police. The
evidence of the attacks was fixed in photos accompanied by official medical
notes. Phone threats were also reported, but there was no response. No response
followed to complaints to the Prosecutor’s Office, the Internal Affairs
Department and the City Court.
But the idea
of leaving the country for our safety reasons came to me later.
This
spring, I visited my hometown Pyatigorsk. Suddenly, at one of bus stops the
policemen came up to me and without any explanation asked me to go with them to
the police station. They demanded that I should unlock my laptop, but, of
course, I refused, and for that reason I spent several hours in a cell.
Apparently, they tried to hack into the computer while I was under arrest, but
they failed, so I was released. That’s when I clearly realized that the
persecution wasn’t over, and the only way to keep my family safe is to change
my place of residence. For every act of lawlessness we filed
a case to the prosecutor’s office: and all of them were denied.
For the last
month, police harassment has been going on in Moscow every weekend. People
protest peacefully for fair elections to the Moscow City Duma, but members of
the internal security forces detain people for no reason, keep them in police
stations for days and beat them.
“He’ll be
fucked up if SLON’s lawyers try to interfere!”
With weekly protests in Moscow, the “Alarm
Button” was adapted to help the protestors. All the necessary information is
delivered to the human rights organisation “OVD-info”, which starts
the process of defence for the illegally accused.
But at this
point problems of the detainee do not come to an end. Often lawyers are simply
not allowed into the territory of the police station and are not allowed to
carry out protective activity. In Russia, this happens not only in situations
of protest actions.
Andrei
Kuznetsov: The application has a database of independent lawyers, who we connect to
your defense. This fall we had a case in Petrozavodsk, when the investigation
did not allow our lawyers to connect with the defendant.
Our client,
let’s call him Misha, was detained under the notorious 228 article of the
Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. He had no connection with his
relatives, the phone was confiscated immediately, and not a single call was
allowed to be made. Free attorneys were instantly invited to him, who in the
conditions of modern Russia are nothing more than tools of a formal execution
of the procedural code. But long before his detention Misha asked his wife in
advance to invite our lawyer’s association “SLON”, if he was to be
prosecuted.
Specialists
from “SLON”, still at the stage of arrangement for visiting, heard on
the phone from Deputy Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Petrozavodsk
Aleksandr Sergeevich Sutyakov that nobody would have access to the prisoner and
“no lawyers are needed here”. On the same day, inspector Yevhenia
Valeryevna Zelenina called our client’s wife and said that “he will be fucked
if lawyers from SLON show up here!”
As it turned
out later, at the meeting of the lawyers with the local head of the
Investigative Committee, Artem Sergeevich Zakharov, they were under
surveillance – were shown photos of their exit from the airport, boarding a
taxi to the hotel, rooms from the inside, also there was provided a calls
printout. At all costs the investigation prevented the lawyers from getting
access to the case, threatening both of them and the wife of the defendant.
As a result,
the investigation submitted a written refusal of Misha to cooperate with a
lawyer from “SLON”. I am sure that he was subjected to physical
violence and refused our help under pressure.
We see with
our own eyes the arbitrariness of the police, the authorities and the judges.
Right now we are investigating the case of 11 arrested protesters in Moscow,
who may be sentenced up to 8 years in prison for their participation in
peaceful marches on 27.07 and 3.08. The arrest of each of them is illegal. They
are accused of “organizing mass riots”, “gestures to the
right”, “attempts to kill policemen” and other things unrelated
to reality.
Ilya Yashin
and Dmitry Gudkov, independent candidates to the Moscow City Duma, are still
under arrest, and Olga Sobol was detained in advance of every peaceful protest
action.
Human rights
organizations, under the conditions of police brutality, find it difficult to
carry out their activities, but they continue to help the illegally detained
citizens.
After 6
months of persecution, the creator of the SLON project, Andrei, seeks political
asylum in the United States to ensure the safety of his family. But he does not
stop his activities.
