Moscow Antifa: Aleksey “Sokrat” Sutuga locked up again

via Moscow Mutiny

If there ever was a modern-day vigilante hero, so to speak, this is him. An acknowledged Antifa leader, Aleksey had been continuously hassled by the joint efforts of all varieties of Russian popo, until the “anti-extremist” squad finally managed to pin him down (under similar circumstances as depicted below) on fabricated charges in 2012.

Along with several other prominent antifascists, Aleksey had spent almost 2 years in jail awaiting a “trial” that never came. He was finally released under Putin’s bullshit amnesty only 3 months ago. Pigs however, being pigs, are obviously unable to let go of an old grudge and are now back at him in full-force (when they’re not too busy toppling neighboring states, shooting protesters from machine guns and starting WWIII.)

The full article from http://www.avtonom.org

Today, on April 8th, 2014, a Judge of the Moscow Zamoskvorechye Court has again confined Aleksey “Sokrat” Sutuga – one of Moscow’s most prominent antifascists, to jail. He is being charged with disorderly conduct by a group of persons – a criminal offense under Part 2 of Article 213 of the Russian Constitution. Sutuga’s lawyer had pleaded with the judge for a measure of restraint that did not involve detention. Several of Aleksey’s friends had been willing to provide him with living quarters in the case of a house-arrest verdict.

Sutuga was arrested on the evening of April 5th, on his way from an antifascist concert in Moscow’s Izmailovo district . The protocol of his arrest states “hooliganism” as a premise for his detention – Sutuga was allegedly cursing loudly in public. (Although according to some accounts Aleksey had been detained by members of the infamous “anti-extrimist” squad along with riot police.)

On April 6th, however, Aleksey was already taken to Moscow’s Criminal Police Headquarters, where he was told that he is a suspected culprit in a fight that had occurred on January 2nd .

According to Aleksey, that evening he was returning from a friend’s house with another acquaintance, when he had stumbled upon an ongoing fight between a group of 6 vs. a group of 3 unknown young men. According to Sutuga , the group of 6 men was of far-right persuasion, one of them had non-lethal handgun (traumatic weapons are legal and widespread in Russia.) The six nazis are now depicted as Sutuga’s “victims”.

Sutuga says that he had intervened in the fight, intending to stop it and subdue the opponents. His testimony is confirmed by his friend, who had witnessed the incident with him. The victims later identified Sutuga through online photographs, and, according to investigators, his “overly expressive appearance .”

Aleksey’s lawyer drew attention to the fact that one of the victims had already taken part in a face-to-face recognition procedure with Aleksey, and had not declared that he was attacked by Aleksey in his subsequent testimony, as it is stated in the police protocol. In addition, at the beginning of the court session, the statutory 48 hours pre-trial detention period had long expired.

Nevertheless , the judge recognized the prosecutors’ notion that Aleksey could allegedly flee if not detained in jail, and proceeded to enter him government custody until May 6th, 2014.

As a reminder, not so long ago, Sutuga had already been detained for over a year as a suspect in a fight with nationalists in the “Vozdukh” night club. On January 10th, 2014 his case had been dismissed due to a general amnesty.

Repost please, if you care.

Moscow anti-fascists amnestied (Russia)

From 325.nostate

“On Friday 10th of January Basmanniy district court of Moscow ceased criminal case against Alexey Olesinov, Alexey Sutuga, Alyon Volikov and Babken Guskasyan.

All four were accused of “hooliganism”, a criminal offense which is included in the amnesty bill, approved as a PR stunt on initiative of Vladimir Putin himself in advent of the Sochi Winter Olympics – most known amnestied political prisoners being 30 detainees of the Arctic Sunrise ship of Greenpeace, and two imprisoned members of Pussy Riot. Four anti-fascists had also other, less severe charges which fall under statutes of limitations.

Alexey Olesinov

Olesinov and Sutuga were released under traveling restrictions last summer, after more than a year in a custody. They, and Volikov who was only released last Friday were accused for having clashed with the far-right security of “Vozdukh”-club in Moscow in December of 2011 during a concert.

Guards claimed that guests of the concert had vandalized club property, they expelled audience and took some of the organizers as hostages, where waiting for their associates “to arrive in order to collect compensation for damages”. Organizers attempted to leave the venue, and guards opened fire with rubber bullets. In the resulting clash, guests of the concert prevailed.

Alexey Sutuga

Russian political police force “Center of counteraction against extremism”, exploited this case in order to have two known anti-fascists, Sutuga and Olesinov detained. Originally they were also accused of another case, where a 16-year fascist was beaten up having made a Nazi salute, but eventually only Volikov and Gukasyan were charged for this incident.

Young Nazi gave testimony against Olesinov and Sutuga, although both had an unquestionable Alibi. This is not the only case, in which a Nazi victim has given false testimony against known anti-fascists when it is unclear who has committed actions. Volikov and Gukasyan were also amnestied for these charges.

Goals of the process which has now finished were much wider than investigation two fights. For example Alina Kosolovskaya, who was interrogated as a witness of the case, was mostly asked questions about known anti-fascist Alexey Gaskarov, who was arrested last April for completely unrelated case of inauguration riot of Vladimir Putin 6th of May 2012.

Of those accused of the inauguration riots, only 4 were released under the amnesty bill, whereas 13 are still in custody (Gaskarov amongst them), two in home arrest, five under travelling restrictions and two have been sentenced. Two members of the “Left front” party are facing the most serious charges of “organising a riot”, although video footage and plenty of witnesses have provided testimony that clash had been prepared by the police.

Another Moscow anti-fascist Irina Lipskaya was also amnestied 27th of December. She was accused of two assaults against far-right concerts in years 2011 and 2012. In the same week three anti-fascists from Nizhni Novgorod were amnestied, criminal process against them proceeded for almost three years.

However, two activists from Nizhni Novgorod were forced to flee the city and hide from officials, and thus they still face charges and are not amnestied. Also, anti-fascist Igor Hartchenko, who was given a three and half years prison sentence in August in Moscow for having defended a concert against far-right attack in July of 2011 remains in prison.

Of course, not only anti-authoritarians are being amnestied. There are no overall statistics on how many people are being amnestied, estimates vary from thousands to tens of thousands. Many political prisoners of the far right have been amnestied as well.

For example 16 Nazis who attacked anti-nuclear protest camp in Angarsk in summer 2007 and beat anarchist Ilya Borodaenko till death were also charged with “hooliganism”, and thus they are now amnestied. Russian officials tend to define far-right political violence as “hooliganism”, which is why even serious crimes of Nazis are often sentenced with hooliganism charges.

But besides all faults, amnesty bill is a proof that the current Russian regime is not immune to a political protest. Due to terrorist threat, Sotchi Olympics will take place in atmosphere of military occupation and economically they are a disaster. But Olympic games and other such international projects are also a reason why Russian government is still worried for its public image, and reacts to political pressure.”

Assault On Prisoners In Sofia Central Prison, October 17 (Bulgaria)

via Brighton ABC:

Jock Palfreeman

Jock Palfreeman, a young Australian anti-fascist currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for defending 2 young Roma lads being brutally attacked by fascist thugs, was attacked along with a group of his fellow prisoners on October 17. here is a statement released by him:

“On the Bulgarian Prisoners’ Rehabilitation Association’s blog I have up until now not written much if anything about myself in an attempt to keep the Association’s blog neutral and equal for all issues and prisoners in Bulgaria and specifically Sofia Central Prison. However, I have done this at the expense of not reporting the prison’s attacks against myself for my unionism and solidarity with other prisoners, in an attempt to reform the corrupt prison administration, however on Thursday 17th of October an incident occurred involving myself that must be published.

At 8.30am a guard was counting prisoners for roll call, he quickly entered a cell and demanded that all 11 occupants exit the cell into the cold corridor, but before 10 of them could react he quickly left the cell and locked the door (the speed in which he left and locked the door made it evident that the guard was looking provocation). I Jock Palfreeman was not asleep but the guard did not see me as I had just exited the toilet and I was standing behind him in the guard’s blind spot, the guard swore at the 10 prisoners and said “now you’re going to see what will happen to you”.

However when the guard locked the cell door, I immediately banged on the door as it was getting close to when I had to go to my university studies at 9am. One of the guards shouted “you’re too late for roll call”, I replied “I’m not too late I have been up since 7am, you just didn’t see me as I just left the toilet, I was standing behind you”, the guard from the previous shift told me that he would open the door for me, but the guards started arguing with each other, one wanted to open the door, the other wouldn’t let him. The guards left the block at about 8.45am.

I sat down and waited to be let out to go to the study room, but at about 8.50am 50 guards rushed into the cell, took all of us out of the cell, 11 people, all of whom had not been in bed since the argument with the guard at 8.45am. The guards took all of us into the corridor and started viciously beating all of us. They used their boots, batons and also punches with their fists, they also took us by the hair and rammed our heads against the wall, myself included.

They lined us up against the wall and about 50 guards started beating everyone from behind. We were 3 Iranians, 6 Iraqis, 1 Sudanese and myself – Jock Palfreeman – citizen of Sofia Central Prison. The guards were comprised of two shifts, from the days of the 16th and the 17th. There were 2 commanding officers and 2 sub-commanding officers and the rest were normal prisoner guards.

During the attack I was shouting “this is a crime” and other prisoners were shouting “Why?”, because they did not speak Bulgarian, all they could say was “Why?”. After the attack had finished, I started to explain to the commanding officer that I didn’t have anything to do with any problem, the guard making the roll call had simply not seen me and that after I explained the situation to him he had refused to re-open the cell door again and that I had the right to go to the study room at 9am.

As I was explaining this, the same guard from the roll call, burst through the other guards, grabbed my shoulder from behind and started hitting me in the stomach and upper body. After this individual guard had finished beating me the commanding officer started threatening us, he said “I don’t care about the human rights organisations, I don’t care about your embassies, this is Bulgaria and we will beat you when we want”, I started to argue with him and he shouted “Shut up or I’ll cut off your beard and shave your head”, this threat perplexed me as it seemed out of context for the violent environment the guards had just put us through. I was shocked into silence as the threat was just so random and although very illegal, somewhat comical.

We were put back in the cell and the guards left. At 9.05am a group of us went to the bars that divide the block’s corridor from the stairs that leave to the block’s exit. Several prisoners wanted to go to the gym as it was their allocated time at 9am, others wanted to go to the Bulgarian language lessons also set at 9am, and I wanted to go to the study room for my own studies. But the same guard from the morning roll call refused to open the corridor gate and instead ran away. I believe that he thought that everyone was coming to him in a big group so as to seek revenge for his previous attack against 17th cell.

The guard was an old guard but new in Sofia Central Prison and so as is typical in Bulgarian institutions, none of his superiors properly instructed him to the fact that at 9am many prisoners have to leave the block to go to their respective activities (which aren’t many so should not have been hard to have known).

So the guard upon seeing people gathering around the gate ran and called the commanding officer thinking that a group was assembling for revenge for the guards’ earlier attack. We could hear him on the phone downstairs telling the commanding officer that a large group of prisoners are at the gates and that he needed help.

About 5 minutes later (which is amazing reaction time considering it can take over 30 minutes for medical help) 30 guards came running up the stairs and they assembled outside the gate of 10th group. They told all the prisoners to go into their cells, which all the prisoners did, including myself. The guards then tried to open the gate but they soon found out they couldn’t. I looked out of my cell and saw that there was a pad lock on the inside of the gate that the guards couldn’t reach.

They tried by force to open the gate by barging it, but the padlock wouldn’t break. I then realized that this was my only opportunity to call for external help. I took my prison phone card and went to the phone in the corridor about 2 metres from the gate where the guards were and I called a lawyer, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee and the Australian consulate.

The guards started banging on the metal gate with metal rods, shouting and they also turned on the block’s siren to try and drown out my conversation with the consul and the lawyer. I told them one by one “please come ASAP, the guards beat us at 8.45 and they’re coming again to beat us”. After I made my phone calls I returned to my cell at 9.11, we know the exact time due to the recorded phone calls.

What is also interesting is at this time the prison told all the lawyers to leave from the lawyer consultation room at the other end of the prison then the prison administration shut down the lawyer consultation room. The prison administration tried all they could to try and stop their crime from leaving the premises of the prison and the confines of the prison administration. It is also completely illegal to expel lawyers from the prison premises, even more so during working hours. The right for a prisoner to meet with his/her lawyer is non-negotiable and this was another extreme violation of prisoners’ rights.

A prisoner from prisoner maintenance Budimir Kujovic came and cut the lock off the gate at about 9.15am and the guards ran into the empty corridor as if they were charging down for a rugby ball despite the total lack of aggression from the behalf of prisoners. They locked all the cell doors and entered 17th cell, my cell. They again started beating everyone with batons, punches, kicks and ramming heads against walls.

After they stopped beating us I asked the sub-commander “why have you come back to this cell? Why are you angry with us specifically?” the sub-commander replied “you (collective ‘you’) have made us come back twice today”, I said “we didn’t make you come one time, people wanted to go to their work and the gym and that guard called you here”.

Despite the beatings I was completely calm as were the other 10 prisoners. They handcuffed us all and they said “ok now we will start the search for telephones”. 5 minutes into the search I was taken out of the block and put into a temporary holding cell on the other side of the prison. I asked the arresting officer “why have you restrained me in handcuffs?” he replied “we (the guards) have been sick of your group for over two months now”, meaning that the problem wasn’t with me individually but rather the guards were trying to make a collective punishment on the entire group.

A normal search of a cell would take about 45 minutes, however they searched the cell for about 3 hours and confiscated only an undocumented hotplate for cooking and furniture. No mobile phone was found and the guards went crazy that not a single mobile could be found, this is as they are all acutely aware of the problem of corruption within the prison administration and therefore presume that every prisoner has a mobile.

The same guard who had provoked the two incidents then came to me in the temporary holding cell and tried to intimidate me to sign as a witness for the search in 17th cell that had been carried out without me, I flatly refused and explained that I would not be a witness for something that I didn’t in fact witness.

With nothing illegal found in the cell, the guards then tried threatening other prisoners to testify against me, but out of about 100 prisoners not a single one would lie, all of them stuck to the truth as they saw and heard it. I was kept in the temporary holding cell (which can be said to be less then comfortable) all day, but allowed visits from the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, a lawyer and the Honorary Consul of Australia. At 4.30pm I was returned without explanation to 10th group, but needless to say all my personal belongings had been thrown around, destroyed or confiscated.

The prison administration wanted to put me in isolation, but could not find legal grounds to do this especially as my lawyer was present. So they took the administrative decision to move me from my old cell to a different cell, in a petty attempt to increase my discomfort, however for those of you who know me personally, you know I love camping!

An ‘investigation’ was carried out and concluded by the prison administration but has yet to be revealed, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee have conducted their own investigation as well as the Ombudsman’s office of Bulgaria. The matter has been referred to the regional prosecutors office, but experience tells us not to expect anything when it comes to the Bulgarian state investigating itself.

The instigating guard was not moved from the block and on Monday the 21st of October he started threatening prisoners to not testify against him; however on the 25th of October he was moved to another place within the prison to separate him from his victims.

This is another case of unacceptable violence against the human rights of prisoners in Bulgaria, the commanding officers should be sanctioned, failing this the Association asks for the resignation of the Director Peter Krestev, so that law might prevail within Bulgarian prisons!”

Jock Palfreeman
Chairman
Bulgarian Prisoners’ Rehabilitation Association

——————————–

How you can help: see Freejock.com

Anti-fascist Pavel Krivonosov from Nizhni Novgorod needs help!

From avtonom.org

Last autumn, a longstanding case against Nizhni Novgorod anti-fascists was returned to investigation, and for a while it seemed like a final victory. However, in contrary to these expectations, the case returned to court this spring and things do not look too good.

Pavel Krivonosov is one of the accused of the fabricated case. He is a social activist, a musician and anarchist. As the set-up has been going for a while, number of charges passed the statute of limitations and were tossed out from the court – political “extremist” charges included.

However, he is accused still according to part 2 of the statute 213 of the Russian criminal codex (hooliganism committed with a group of people), which carries a maximum sentence of 7 years in prison.

It is not doubt that this case was fabricated by Nizhni Novgorod officers of Center of Counteraction Against Extremism (so-called E-center). Even the Nazi victims of the assault could not recognise Pavel as the assaulter. Prosecution has one single witness, a taxi driver who is providing false testimony and claiming that assaulter was Pavel.

Pavel has an alibi, he was at work, and his employer has testified to prove this. Case of Pavel has been substantiated with a number of other expertises as well. It is obvious, that Pavel did not committed this crime. Repressions against him are motivated solely by his social activism. Currently he is in a need of money to finance legal costs, and we are happy for any kind of help!

Fake “membershop card of Antifa-RASH”, planted to Pavel during search of his home.

Anarchist Black Cross of Nizhni Novgorod

You can transfer money to support the anti-fascists in the Kazan-Moscow ABC fund via paypal: abc-msk@riseup.net

Please always write to abc-msk@riseup.net how much and what kind of goals you send money. Also you can use “Western Union” or bank transfer, for this please write to the abc-msk@riseup.net . We would be grateful for any help!

Original link

Write letters to anarchist and anti-fascist prisoners of Moscow!

Kharchenko Igor Olegovich
FKU SIZO-2 UFSIN Rossii po g. Moskve
ul. Novoslobodskaya d. 45
127055 Moskva Russia

Igor was arrested in September 2011. He is accused of having participated in a fight on the 4th of July 2010, during which the audience of a punk hardcore concert dispersed a band of nationalists, who had come in order to kill and maim concert guests.

Igor, however, did not take part in the fight – plenty of those present at the concert have given testimony, that during the fight Igor was performing in the concert. The whole case against Igor relies exclusively on the testimony of failed “race warriors”, V. Sumin and V. Zhidousouv.

The true reason for the arrest of Kharchenko is an attempt by Moscow investigators to take revenge on their failure to jail anyone for the action by anti-fascists against the Khimki city administration on the 28th of July 2010.

Igor’s co-accused is Denis Solopov, one of the “Khimki hostages”, who has received refugee status in Western Europe after UNCHR recognised, that the police investigation on the Khimki case was carried out with various violations,  for example confessions gained through use of torture.

Moscow investigators ignored the fact, that during this fight Solopov was in Turkey, which is confirmed by the stamps in his passport, and plenty of eye-witnesses.

The investigation also attempts to indict Kharchenko for “organising of an extremist community,” according to statute 282.1 of the Russian criminal codex.

More on the case against Kharchenko:
http://avtonom.org/en/people/igor-kharchenko

Butyrka prison has also a form, which you may use in order to send letters:
http://wr1.fsin-service.ru/Letter-Client/main.html#new_letter
However, this form is only in Russian and paying for the service (minimal payment is around 1.20 euros) requires either a Russian bank account or account in some internet payment system, common in Russia (such as yandex.dengi or webmoney). In form, you must indicate year of birth of Kharchenkio – 1991.

Sutuga Alexey Vladimirovich
FKU SIZO-2 UFSIN Rossii po g. Moskve
ul. Novoslobodskaya d. 45
127055 Moskva Russia

Alexey Sutuga has been a member of Autonomous Action since the early 2000s. He was first active in Irkutsk and then in Moscow. He participated in every single major campaign of the anarchist movement in the past ten years, and supported the journal Avtonom.

In 2007, he joined the ecological protest camp against uranium enrichment in city of Angarsk in Siberia, which was assaulted by nationalists in the early morning hours. Ilya Borodaenko from Nahodka of Pacific Ocean was murdered there, and a number of other visitors of the camp were seriously wounded.

Alexey was arrested on the evening of 17th of April, and has been in remand prison since then. He, together with Alexey Olesinov, is accused of having taken part in an incident in the Moscow club “Vozdukh”, where on 17th of December, during a punk-hardcore concert, a conflict between the audience and the security took place.

The club security, consisted of supporters of the far right, and were provoking guests. Due to the conflict, the concert was stopped prematurely, but the security attempted to take some guests hostage, threatening them with punishment from their friends – nationalist football hooligans. Concert guests resisted, the security opened fire with rubber coated metal bullets, but soon the concert-goers gained the upper hand and the security was neutralised and sent to the hospital.

More on the case of the Moscow prisoners: http://avtonom.org/en/mda

The Butyrka prison also has a form which can be used in order to send letters:
http://wr1.fsin-service.ru/Letter-Client/main.html#new_letter
However, this form is only in Russian and paying for this service (minimal payment is around 1.20 euros) requires either a Russian bank account or an account with some internet payment system, common in Russia  (such as yandex.dengi or webmoney). In the form, you must indicate year of birth of Sutuga – – 1986.

Full list of prisoners in former Soviet Union by Anarchist Black Cross of Moscow:

http://wiki.avtonom.org/en/index.php/Category:Prisoners_in_former_Soviet_Union

source