Network Trial defendant Viktor Filinkov tells a joke: “A programmer, a businessman, and an industrial climber planned to overthrow the government.”
The Penza Case in Petersburg: Closing Statements
Mediazona
June 18, 2020
In April 2017, a bombing took place in the Saint Petersburg metro. The explosion killed 16 people and injured 103.
According to the pre-trial investigation, the suicide attack was carried out by Akbarzhon Dzhalilov and organized by the “Katibat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad” jihadist group consisting of Uzbek fighters, active in Syria, previously with support from Al-Qaeda. The group however, did not claim responsibility for the attack.
On Saturday 11th of April, relatives took Ilya Romanov, anarchist prisoner from LPU-21. Prosecutor did not appeal decision of the court of Zubovo-Polyanski of Republic of Mordovia, which has ordered to release Romanov for basis of his health. We congratulate Ilya, and everyone who was fighting for his release from prison!
Court had decided 31st of March that Romanov should be released, as he was paralyzed in the colony after stroke.
We must not forget the anarchists and anti-fascists suffering repression in Russia! We are calling for people to take action of all forms to express support for these prisoners, to protest the prison system, and to spread information about the use of torture as an instrument of repression in Russia.
A Russian court has issued harsh sentences to seven antifascist and anarchist activists in a controversial domestic terrorism case marred by claims that investigators tortured the defendants to elicit confessions.
On 27th July, my friend Vladislav Barabanov took part in the rally for fair elections and permission of the independent candidates in Moscow. He was one of 1,500 detainees at this action and one of 13 people accused of criminal offense.
"Article 212 case " or "the Moscow case" is another example of lawlessness in Russia's everyday life. We wish to tell the whole world of people dear to us getting battered and imprisoned for their active citizenship.
In Moscow, at the end of August 10, plainclothes police officers arrested the anarchist Alexei Polikhovich on his way home from Russia’s largest opposition demonstration since 2011. A local Moscow court formally charged Alexei with “petty hooliganism” and sentenced him to 13 days in jail. The arrest stemmed from a combative and passionate speech Alexei gave to thousands in Moscow that day.
On April 19, the North Caucasian District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don convicted an anarchist from Evpatoria Yevgeny Karakashev in the case of Calls for Committing of Terrorist Activity in the Russian social network "Vkontakte".
9 april 2019 the court trial in the case of the “anarchist terrorist community” Network got underway in St. Petersburg. Viktor Filinkov, a 24-year-old programmer, and Yuli Boyarshinov, a 27-year-old industrial climber, have been charged with involvement in Network.
Lawyers for Viktor Filinkov and Yuly Boyarshinov, two of the defendants in the “network case”, are now preparing for their trial. The defendants in the case are Russian anti-fascists who were arrested – and tortured by security services officers – in St Petersburg and Penza last year. They are accused of a so-called terrorist plot – a prosecution denounced by Russian human rights organisations as a frame-up.
Anarchist Azat Miftakhov, a mathematics and mechanics graduate student at Moscow State University, has been remanded in custody until March 7, 2019.
On February 1, 2019, officers of the FSB, the Russian state security apparatus descended from the KGB, arrested a dozen people in the latest wave of their campaign of repression against accused anarchists throughout the country. After brutally torturing them over the following 24 hours in order to force them to agree to incriminating statements, they released 11 of them.
Next year, 2019, the Father Frost against Putin-festival will once again take place in Helsinki. From the 5th to the 6th of January you can join discussions about the state of affairs in Russia and the x-USSR region, and get a chance to meet various social and political activists without the fear of police or special service operations. (fear of infringement from the side of police and special services).
Dmitry Pchelintsev and Andrei Chernov, residents of Penza and suspects in the so-called Network case, have gone on hunger strike, claiming remand prison officials and FSB officers have intimidated them during their review of their criminal case file, something to which they are entitled by Russian law. Several Penza suspects in the case have claimed they have been put in solitary confinement, handcuffed to radiators, and threatened with violance.
October 28, 2018 in Helsinki in front of the Russian Embassy. 10 people took part in the action, mostly anti-fascists and anarchists from Russia and some activists from Finland.
In February 2018, a campaign was launched in Russia to support those accused in the Network case. Among the main goals of the campaign were fundraising for legal costs, organizing humanitarian support for the arrested and offering support to their relatives. The resources gathered have so far been distributed according to the financial circumstances of the respective families and the needs of the arrested.
Antifascist and anarchist Arman Sagynbayev, who was arrested and remanded in custody as part of the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case, had until recently admitted his guilt. On September 4, he withdrew his confession, explaining that initially he had been tortured into testifying against himself and other young men arrested in the case, and then had been afraid to go against case investigators.
8 September at 19.00 by local time in Riga (Latvia) in the library "Bolderaya", which is now in the center of the city, at Avotu Str. 29, presentation of the book by Dmitry Buchenkov "Falsification of criminal cases in modern Russia (on the example of the "Bolotnoye" case)" will take place. We hope that we will be able to provide a live broadcast of this event on our Facebook page: Anarhisti Latvijā / Anarchists in Latvia / Анархисты в Латвии
On 18th of August the nazis of Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) have called a demonstration for ”freedom of speech” in Turku, Finland. NRM is organised in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark so far, and aims to create one national socialist Nordic state through revolutionary means.
A new defendant has been added to the case of the so-called Network, Petersburger Yuli Boyarshinov. In the following article, OVD Info reports what it knows about how Mr. Boyarshinov was charged in the case, and about the pressure put on him in the remand prison where he is currently jailed.
June 11th is the International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason & All Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners. This action day has a long history, it was organized first time 20 years ago in 2004. In the first year, we managed to paint a graffiti to wall of one of the most guarded objects of Moscow,...
Anarchist group ANA Regensburg hosted my online-presentation on 16th of May 2024, in which I discussed tactics of anti-war activism in Russia, and reasons why the anti-war movement has not been able to make an impact to change the course of events yet. Cases of anarchists repressed for anti-war...