When mass civil protests in Russia were defeated in 2011-12 the Putinist police regime started open political repressions against militants of social and political movements, including anarchists and antifascists. Many activists have been sentenced to prison terms in the course of the last 5 years in Russia.

We call on comrades from the whole world to show solidarity with Russian anarchists and antifascists – prisoners of the Putinist police state, and distribute information about the international solidarity decade as widely as possible, maybe organise an event in your own town.

It could be an info-party where letters could be written, a film show, a fund-raising event, a benefit gig, a protest action at the Russian embassy in your own country, a solidarity action – only your fantasy is the limit.



Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1774132002816021/

"Vkontakte" event: http://vk.com/abc_solidarity_days

Please see brief description of repressions to which Russian anarchists and antifascists were subjected.

Dmitry Buchenkov

A well-known antifascist and anarchist Dmitry Buchenkov, PhD in political science, was arrested in Moscow in December 2015. He is suspected of participating in the riots of May 6, 2012. More than 400 persons were arrested as a result of a mass protest action against Putin’s politics that took place on May 6, 2012 in Moscow. Dmitry was not in Moscow on that day, he was in Nizhny Novgorod, more than 300 km away from Moscow.

Dmitry is a long-time participant of the antifascist and anarchist movements and he has done a lot for their development. Dmitry’s comrades and friends believe that the arrest is related to his political militancy and his active position regarding the developments taking place in the country.

Dmitry Buchenkov, 36, lecturer of history and political science, PhD in political science, associate professor, worked as Deputy Chairman of the Medicine History and Socio-Humanitarian Science Department in the Russian National Research Medical University named after N.I.Pirogov in Moscow. Prior to 2008 he worked as an associate professor of the Philosophy Department in the Volga State Pedagogy University (Nizhny Novgorod) for five years. He was fired for his political activism. Dmitry moved to Moscow after he had had to quit the Volga University.

In Moscow Dmitry joined the local cell of the Autonomous Action, whose member he had already been since 2002. This is how he describes the ideology he shares in a book entitled “Anarchists in the late XX century in Russia” published in 2009: «Basic worldview values of anarchism (self-management, self-organisation, anticapitalism) are still relevant today». In 2013 Dmitry quit the Autonomous Action organization, but he did not give up his political activism.

He authored several books on history and modern condition of anarchism in Russia. He is an activist of the antifascist and anarchist movements.

Dmitry actively participated in organising efforts and life of the antifascist and anarchist movements in Moscow. He organised many street antifascist protest actions, different cultural events. He took part in the establishment of an antifascist centre called «V project», where antifascists and anarchists held their gigs, meetings, and prepared their actions. Police and FSB more than once threatened to attack Dmitry physically for his political activities and struggles. In 2015 unknown persons, probably police or FSB agents, severely beat Dmitry up, so that he got brain concussion, was all covered in blood and couldn’t even remember how the assault occurred.

Dmitry Buchenkov planned to organise an all-Russian antifascist and anarchist forum “Self-management and Libertarian Communism” in early 2016. But the authoritarian Putinist regime police arrested him.

Dmitry Buchenkov solidarity groups:

https://www.facebook.com/freebuchenkov/

https://vk.com/freebuchenkov

Address: 125130, Moscow, 20 Vyborgskaya Str., SIZO "Vodnik", Dmitry E. Buchenkov, (date of birth: 22 August 1978)/

Alexei Gaskarov

A well-known antifascist and anarchist. An organiser and participant of many anarchist and left-wing conferences. He was arrested on 3 August 2010 on the Khmiki case after an administrative building in Khimki had been assaulted on 28 July 2010. An environmental protest action took place in Khimki against deforestation of big chunks of a reserve forest in order to build a toll road. On 15 October, 2010, the court decision on the arrest was recalled. On 24 June, 2011, he was legally acquitted by the Khimki municipal court.

He was strongly beaten by police on 6 May, 2012, at Bolotnaya square during a political opposition protest, so he filed a petition on riot police power abuses involving violence and riot control weapons.

On 28 April, 2013, he was apprehended and the following day arrested on accusation of leading a group of persons who actively participated in mass riots that supposedly took place at Bolotnaya square and of violence against a policeman. Later the accusation included two policemen supposedly attacked by Gaskarov: according to investigation data, Gaskarov grabbed a shoulder of an interior troops soldier and then he grabbed a leg of Igor Ibatulin, a riot police officer. The final version of the charge is also saying that he participated in mass riots at Bolotnaya square. On 18 August, 2014, the court sentenced Gaskarov to three and a half years in a general regime penal colony.

Many political activists relate Gaskarov’s imprisonment to a direct revenge from political police called the «Centre for Combating Extremism» for his long-time political activism. Gaskarov support website — gaskarov.info

Addresses for letters: Gaskarov — 301654, Russia, Tula Oblast, Novomoskovsk, 27 Centralnaya Str., IK-6 UFSIN, detachment 5, Alexei V. Gaskarov, (Date of birth: 18/06/1985)

Alexei Sutuga

A well-known antifascist and anarchist from «Autonomous Action». Charged with hooliganism for supposedly beating up nationalists in a brawl. Sentenced to three years and one month of colony.

Sutuga was apprehended in April 2014 in Moscow by political police from the «Centre for Combating Extremism» after an antifa gig. During interrogation he was asked about his trip to Maidan (Ukrainian protests in Kyiv in 2014). Alexei was accused of participation in a brawl on 2 January, 2014, in «Sbarro» bar, where he kicked and beat several persons with a chair and a selfmade hammer.

Sutuga himself said he tried to stop other people fighting — the brawl was between Neo-Nazis and some other youths. On October 1 Sutuga was sentenced to three years and one month of colony. On December 17 the appeal court left the sentence unchanged.

On 17 March, 2015, while in Irkutsk remand prison, from where he had to be transferred to a colony, Sutuga went on a dry hunger strike because he had been pressurised in the remand prison: he was offered to stay there instead of the colony, and when Sutuga had refused, they got hold of his letters and books. When the news on his hunger strike leaked outside the remand prison, he was transferred to the colony. The he stopped his hunger strike. In the colony Sutuga was subjected to a solitary confinement cell. He is constantly pressurised by the prison administration.

Address for letters: 665809 Irkutsk Oblast, Angarsk, First Industrial Cluster, quarter 47, building 6, IK No.2, Alexei V. Sutuga, born in 1986 (you can send him only 1st class registered mail) or you can write via Rosuznik website

Ilya Romanov

On 6 August, 2015, a visiting board of the Moscow district military court passed a sentence upon Ilya Romanov, anarchist from Nizhny Novgorod – 10 years of high-security prison. The court ignored all arguments brought forward by defence. Afterwards the term was changed to 9 years of high-security prison.

Romanov was injured by a self-made firecracker’s explosion in October 2013, but they re-qualified him from an unfortunate experimenter to a “terrorist”. Apart from that firecracker an “interview” that he had given in December 2012 in a suburb of Donetsk was used in his case. Both “crimes” were incomplete: Ilya Romanov is accused of trying to menace local population and authorities of Nizhny Novgorod in order to save Kulibinsky park from tree-felling, but he didn’t manage because the device exploded during a test. He also supposedly tried to propagate terrorism through Ukrainian media, namely «Radio RKAS - Libertaire», but he didn’t manage to accomplish it either. It appears that it is not a radio station, rather an internet blog. The interview itself is just a Dictaphone record made at a party following his release from prison.

Romanov, whose family consists of retired parents and a teenage daughter is the poorest of all inmates. His family hardly manages to bring him parcels now and then, while Romanov also has to pay for a lawyer working on two supervisory complaints.

431130, Republic of Mordovia, Zubovo-Polyansky region, Lepley, FKU IK-22, Ilya E. Romanov. (Birthdate 3 July 1967)

Alexander Kolchenko

On 25 August, 2015, the military court in Rostov-upon-Don passed a cruel sentence against Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov and Crimean antifascist Alexander Kolchenko. The investigation authorities called them “terrorists” — allegedly Sentzov guided by the «Right Sector» from Kyiv (banned in Russia) founded a “terrorist group” in Simpheropol that sought to bring Crimea back to Ukraine.

Kolchenko supposedly made part of the group. The “terrorists” set fire on the office doors of “Crimean Russian Community” and a window in the local office of the “United Russia” (the ruling party in Russia). During the court, Gennady Afanasiyev — one of key witnesses upon whose words the accusation was built — said that his testimony was either given under torture or simply invented. Afanasyev got 7 years in prison on the “Crimean terrorists” case. Oleg Sentzov was sentenced to 20 years and Alexander Kolchenko to10 years in prison for burning a door and a window.

Address for letters: 456612, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Kopeisk, 20 Kemerovskaya Str., IK-6, detachment 4, Alexander A. Kolchenko, born in 1989.

Elizaveta Tsvetkova

31 may 2016 Taganrog City Court Judge Georgy Serebryanikov sentenced 31-year-old local resident Elizaveta Tsvetkova to a year of corrective labor for disseminating leaflets criticizing the police. As published on the court’s website, the verdict stipulates that Tsvetkova will be assigned to a workplace she may not choose herself, and fifteen percent of Tsvetkova’s wages will be docked by the state for a year. The activist has also been charged 6,000 rubles in court costs.

Serebryanikov found the defendant guilty under Criminal Code Article 281.2 (incitement of hatred or enmity toward the social group “police officers”), which stipulates a maximum punishment of four years in a penal colony.

During closing arguments on May 16, Taganrog Deputy Chief Prosecutor Vadim Dikaryov asked that Tsetkova be sentenced to one year in a work-release colony. Serebryanikov thus imposed a lighter sentence than was requested by the prosecution.

The activist, however, pleaded not guilty. During her closing statement, on May 27, she stressed she had protested the illegal actions of law enforcement officers. She reminded Judge Serebryanikov of high-profile criminal cases against policemen, including the cases of Major Denis Yevsyukov and the Dalny police station in Kazan.

Lawyer Yuri Chupilkin had also asked the court to acquit his client. Initially, the reading of the verdict in Tsvetkova’s trial had been scheduled for May 30. However, an hour before the scheduled hearing, the activist was called and informed it would be postponed. The reasons for the delay were not explained to the defendant.

It is unclear whether Tsvetkova would appeal the verdict.

Charges were filed against the activist in January 2015. According to investigators, Tsvetkova downloaded a leaflet criticizing the police from the Vkontakte social network, printed it out, and the day before Law Enforcement Officers Day, in November 2014, posted it at public transport stops and on street lamps.

The investigation was completed in August 2015. However, in September, the acting Taganrog city prosecutor uncovered numerous legal violations in the investigation, refused to confirm the indictment, and sent the case back to the Russian Investigative Committee. The indictment was confirmed the second time round, in November.

However, investigators ignored a sociological forensic study, carried out by Professor Vladimir Kozyrkov at Nizhny Novgorod University. Professor Kozyrkov rejected claims that police officers constitute a social group.

At preliminary hearings in December, Chupilkin insisted on striking a number of pieces of evidence from consideration, in particular, studies done by the regional interior ministry. Judge Serebryanikov, however, rejected the defense’s motions.

The hearing on the merits began on January 15, 2016. During the April 20 hearing, Viktor Chernous, a sociology professor at Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don, subpoenaed as an expert witness, also testified that police officers were not a social group, and consequently there had been nothing criminally culpable in the actions imputed to the defendant.

In turn, Elizaveta Koltunova, an assistant professor of linguistics at Nizhny Novgorod University, who was subpoenaed as an expert witness, noted that she could find nothing extremist about the leaflet that had led to the charges filed against Tsvetkova.

Rosfinmonitoring has included Tsvetkova in its list of terrorists and extremists and blocked her bank account.

Anarchist Black Cross – Moscow Fund

Money is needed to support our comrades in their labour camps and remand prisons. Anarchist Black Cross – Moscow calls on everyone to show solidarity, help, and if possible transfer this so much needed money to the Anarchist Black Cross – Moscow accounts.

If you have any questions on how to make a money transfer or any other wishes, please write to avtonom46@gmail.com and abc-msk@riseup.net

Paypal-account: avtonom46@gmail.com and abc-msk@riseup.net

Anarchist Black Cross – Moscow