Many detained in Russia for reading aloud the Russian Constitution

[TomSea]

Many detained in Russia for reading aloud the Russian Constitution

Russia’s Constitution being trampled, one young woman being detained

At least 15 people were detained in Moscow on Dec 12, Russia’s Constitution Day, for a peaceful action reading the Constitution aloud. In St. Petersburg an activist is spending the night in police custody for a single person picket which even under Russia’s current unconstitutional legislation is legal.

The last of the 15 Russians detained in Moscow on Russian Constitution Day for exercising their constitutional right to freedom of peaceful assembly were released late on Monday evening.  The police had drawn up protocols, indicating that they will face administrative charges, and six of the activists initially refused to leave the police station until they were given copies.  The documents will almost certainly be used in court to impose steep fines, with the likely claim that they had ‘infringed the procedure for holding public gatherings’ or that they disobeyed a police officer’ virtually never questioned by the courts.

In St. Petersburg, Yana Turbova was detained outside the Constitutional Court where she was holding a legal single person picket.  In her case the police have thrown both charges at her – of infringing the rules and disobedience, with this carrying a possible short period of imprisonment.   There was no information on how her actions had supposedly breached procedure or what the police considered to have been her disobedience.

Continued: http://khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1481586738