The case of Ilya Azar: Moscow Themis took off the blindfold and was stunned

Sergey Baimukhametov, publicist

It seems that Themis took off the blindfold to consider Russian reality, did not believe her eyes, got confused and does not know what to do now.

A petition demanding the release of a journalist and municipal deputy Ilya Azar is gaining tens of thousands of signatures. From May 28, from the moment of his arrest, every day at the building of the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of Moscow on Petrovka 38, there are single pickets of solidarity. A total of 134 people were detained.

Ilya Azar, as the press already wrote, was detained for holding a single picket in defense of the creator of the Telegram channel "Police Ombudsman" Vladimir Vorontsov. Tverskoy District Court issued a decision - arrest for 15 days for violation of the rules for street actions and violation of the regime of self-isolation.

The right to pickets is protected by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the by-laws state that they do not require any approvals and notifications. This means that the arrest of Ilya Azar is simply unlawful, the statement says members of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation.

If we consider his arrest under the Code of Administrative Violations: “Violation of the legislation in the field of ensuring sanitary and epidemiological welfare ...committed during the emergency regime or when there is a threat of the spread of the disease...", then in this paragraph of the Code of Administrative Offenses there is no word days.

But then what happened with Ilya Azar turned into an even bigger legal incident.

The Tverskoy District Court issued the exact same order of arrest for 15 days in relation to activist and social activist Viktor Nemytov. He even went on a single picket in defense of the creator of the Telegram channel "Police Ombudsman" Vladimir Vorontsov.

But after 2 days, on May 29, the Moscow City Court already canceled the arrest, that is, recognized the charge under Article 8 of Article 8 as unlawful. 20.2 Administrative Code (repeated violation of the rules of a public event). However, he left the charge under part 1 of art. 20.6.1 Administrative Code (failure to comply with the rules of conduct in an emergency or threat of its occurrence). True, he reduced the fine to twenty thousand rubles, and then ... freed him from paying a fine.

If translated into the language of native aspens, the Moscow City Court admitted that Viktor Nemytov was detained and arrested for no reason. And the decision of the Moscow City Court on the re-qualification of the case, the fine and the subsequent release from the fine - to save the face of law enforcement agencies.

Otherwise, you will have to start a case against police officers under Article 149 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Unlawful obstruction of holding a meeting, rally, demonstration, procession, picket ... by an official using his official position”. It provides for punishment of up to 3 years in prison.

But Ilya Azar was detained under the same circumstances and under the same articles. However, he remained under arrest. And now he’s been in a special detention center for eight days. He should have considered his appeal on June 1, but for some reason they postponed consideration on June 5th.

On June 5, the Moscow City Court partially granted the appeal of Ilya Azar. “The court upheld the decision of the trial court to bring Azar to administrative responsibility under part 8 of art. 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation ("Repeated violation of the rules of picketing"), but reduced the sentence by 5 days, from 15 to 10 days of arrest, he will be released on June 7, ”the press service of the Moscow City Court said.

It seems that Themis took off the blindfold to consider Russian reality, did not believe her eyes, got confused and does not know what to do now.