Moscow April 22, 2013

4.2 Established facts

4.2.1 Application of the organizers, the course of the negotiations, coordination with city authorities; time and location of the public assembly, site perimeter of the public assembly; the course of the talks on law enforcement issues, the arrangements reached and their implementation.

The Notification of April 23, 2012 contained the following route defined by the organizers/applicants: beginning at 3 PM along Tverskaya Street – the demonstration from the Triumfalnaya Square to the Manezhnaya Square followed by the meeting.

On April 25, the applicants met with Aleksey Mayorov, the Head of the Regional Security Department of the Moscow City Government,

According to Regulations on the Regional Security Department of the Moscow City Government, the Department “shall consider notifications of public events received by the Moscow City Government and prepare instruction drafts of the Moscow Deputy Mayor at the Moscow City Government on the coordination and cooperation with the law-enforcement authority regarding the events. Shall coordinate the activities of the prefectures of the Moscow city administration divisions on considering notifications of public assemblies and taking appropriate decisions”. http://drbez.mos.ru/about/polozhenie_o_departamente/

who, on behalf of the City Government, informed that the demonstration along Tverskaya Street and the meeting on the Manezhnaya Square cannot be approved of because of the dress rehearsal of the Victory date parade on May 6 during which all the Kremlin adjacent squares were supposed to be closed. Mayorov, in his turn, suggested Frunzenskaya Embankment to hold the demonstration and Luzhniki to hold the meeting. The respective written statement was received by the applicants on April, 26.

On this very day, the applicants sent their claim to the Moscow city Government with the notification of the impossibility of holding the meeting at Luzhniki and suggested the authorities try to find any route within the Garden Ring Road. In the course of negotiations with Aleksey Mayorov, the following alternative places for holding the March were considered: the demonstration from the Kaluzhskaya Square to Yakimanka Street and the meeting on the Bolotnaya Square; the demonstration along the boulevards and the meeting on the Pushkin Square; the meeting near the Ulitsa 1905 Goda underground station (with blocking the road); the meeting in Sakharov Prospekt.

During the working session in the evening of April 26, the organizers of the May protest actions made a decision to seek the agreement of the City Government to hold the demonstration and the meeting in the central part of the city (the beginning of the action was scheduled at 3 PM on the May 6).

The representatives of the Moscow City Government promised to approve of the meeting site till the evening of April 28, however the answer was not received until May 4 (this is the common policy of the city authorities which prevents organizers from informing the eventual participants about the exact time, format and location of a meeting).

The formal notification of approval was issued on May 4, 2012, two days before the meeting. The notification informed the organizers on the “approval of the demosntration beginning at 4 PM on the Kaluzhskaya Square following along B. Yakimanka street and B. Polyanka street to the Bolotnaya Square and the meeting on the Bolotnaya Square till 7.30 PM with the purpose of “voicing the protest against corrupt practices and fraud in the course of elections for the State Duma of the Russian Federation and the presidential vote…” with up to 5,000 participants.” Meanwhile it was obvious for the organizers and the city authorities that the actual number of participants was supposed to be significantly greater. The Agreement was signed by A.V. Mayorov, Head of the Moscow City Regional Security Department (Annex 1 to Section 4.2.1). Such a late approval of holding the meeting is in itself a grave violation of the civil rights for holding peaceful assemblies.

On May 5, 2012 there was a meeting at the Mayor's office with the participation of S. Davidis, as the representative of the applicants. According to him (participant’s evidence No. 14), such technical meetings are held to coordinate the route of columns, the location of the borders, the stage, the police forces. Though, on May 5 none of these was decided. A. Mayorov has only announced that the columns’ route, arrangements of the meeting area and the security forces lay-out would be the same as on February 4, 2012, in the course of the respective demonstration and meeting (Annex 2 to Section 4.2.1).

The lay-out identical with the lay-out of the meeting on February 4, was published on the Russian State Agency RIA Novosti web site http://ria.ru/infografika/20120201/553956909.html (Annex 3 to the Section 4.2.1). The lay-out was also published on the Moscow Central Internal Affairs Directorate web site. The lay-outs show that the area of the approved assembly area includes the Bolotnaya Square garden and the area located between Serafimovich Street, 2 and Bolotnaya Street, 14, along Serafimovich Street between Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge and Maly Kamenny Bridge, Bolotnaya Enmabenkment and the Bolotnaya Square. The point to be emphasized is that all the acts of violence of the participants, the provokers and the police were committed within the approved assembly area.

In fact, the authorities without any notification of the applicants arbitrary and illegitimately changed the lay-out and the route of the demonstration to a significant extent and broke the major lay-out of February 4, 2012. The document which serves the evidence of this fact is On Execution of the Assignment (Annex 5 to Section 4.2.1) of August 15, 2012, signed by O.V. Baranov, Major General, the Deputy Head of the Moscow Department of the Ministry of Internal Affaris – the Chief of the Metropolitan police:

“Taking into account that the coordination of the route of the demonstration and the location of the meeting were agreed upon at the above named meeting at 9 PM on May 4, 2012, the public order and public security assurance plan and the cartographic solution were prepared in the shortest possible time (on the night of May 4 to 5 this year) and then were approved by the government of the Moscow Department of the Russian Ministry of Interior on May 5, 2012.

Contrary to the way it was done on February 4, 2012, the Bolotnaya Square garden was blocked with metallic bars and by the police forces (thus excluding a large part of the Bolotnaya Square from the approved meeting area). Only a narrow area of Bolotnaya Embankment was opened (Annex 4 to Section 4.2.1). Besides, an additional line of metal detection arches was placed at the entrance to the meeting area which were not used to prevent those citizens who participated in the meeting only from access (as on February 4, 2012), but to groundlessly examine the demonstration participants. There were less extra arches than at the entrance to the demonstration location and their number was evidently not enough for free passing of the demonstration participants to the meeting area.

On February 4, no barriers were installed in the public garden, but on May 6 it was in fact surrounded by the armed police forces. As Nadezhda Mitiushkina reported (participant’s evidence No. 585), the police feared that the marchers would pitch up tents in the public garden and searched the organizer’s transport thoroughly.

Initially, the Mayor's office assigned only four hours for stage installation for the machinery necessary for the parade rehearsal was to be located on the Bolotnaya Square until 1PM.

For several hours the police would not let the truck with extra bars for stage security protection.

For the first time, the police banned cars with satellite dishes which were intended to cover the assembly. Only the truck of the Russia 24 TV Channel was allowed to the off-stage territory which was formally disposed by the organizers.

Another substantial issue is the fact that the City Government did not issue a written instruction to the organizers which would appoint a City Government authorized representative, who, under paragraph 3 of Article 12 of the Federal Law No. 54 would have been responsible for assistance to the assembly organizer. The violations of the law related to the refusal to promote assistance to the organizer of a public assembly were committed not only by the City government but also by V. Kolokoltsev, Chief of the Moscow Internal Affairs Directorate. V. Kolokoltsev, following the suggestion of the City Government, was responsible for the appointment of an internal affairs authorities’ authorized representative for providing assistance to the organizer of a public assembly to ensure public order and security of citizens (clause 1, Art. 14 of the Federal Law No. 54).

As a result, there were no authorized persons officially appointed by the city authorities and Central Internal Affairs Directorate Government, who would be responsible for providing assistance to the assembly organizers, were present at the meeting. Under such circumstance, the organizers and the above named persons could not have kept in touch whatsoever. This contributed to a misunderstanding between the police forces and the participants, as well as made it difficult to resolve conflicts.

On May 6, Nadezhda Mitiushkina, who was within the area of the planned meeting on Bolotnaya Square, unsuccessfully tried to find out the name and title of the Internal Affairs Authorities’ representative responsible for security, law and order during the assembly. A. Makhonin, Police Lieutenant Colonel, appeared at the Kaluzhskaya Square, at the beginning of the demonstration and introduced himself to the organizers as a person responsible for security in the course of the demonstration. However, A. Makhonin made it clear that holding the meeting on the Bolotnaya Square was beyond his competence. Before the demonstration, on the Kaluzhskaya Square, Police Lieutenant Colonel Makhonin issued a notice on the responsibility for possible violations in the course of the assembly to the organizers.

Only a few weeks after May 6, 2012 it was reported that it was U. Zdorenko, Police Colonel, who was supposedly responsible for security on the Bolotnaya Square on May 6 (allegedly he appears in the criminal case files as the responsible for security directly on Bolotnaya Square).