Russia: Call for Global Action Day in support of Vsevolod Ostapov

Monday, July 13 2009 Infoshop News

http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20090713012816287

On April the 4, 2008, Moscow cops beat up and arrested seven young
men near metro station Sokolniki in Moscow. Now one of them faces up
to 5 years of prison,

No love is lost between Russian population and cops: facts of police
terror are brought to light with disturbing frequency.

On April the 4, 2008, Moscow cops beat up and arrested seven young
men near metro station Sokolniki in Moscow. The reason for this was
an attempt made by these kids to prevent illegal arrest of their
19-year old friend Seva Ostapov. Once in the police station (OVD
Sokolniki), "law enforcers" decided to show "smartasses" the error of
their ways: for several hours cops have been viciously beating up and
torturing our friends with tasers (electroshockers). Cops made lots
of chauvinistic and racist remarks (it's a common knowledge that many
russian cops are very supportive of nazi ideas).

Moscow anarchists reacted with a campaign that succeeded in
attracting public and media attention so that milita's top boss had
to make public comments on the issue. Cops decided to go on the
offensive, i.e. they charged with minor offence 6 of the young people
(supposedly for a participation in public brawl - a brilliant move to
cover up the cop-inflicted wounds on their bodies), while the seventh
one, Seva Ostapov, got a felony charge of an assault on a cop. Seva
faces long prison sentence (charged with an article 318.1 of Criminal
Codex of Russian Federation, 5 years maximum), although the CCTV
records and numerous witnesses point out that the charge is
completely false.

Each and every part of the state machine of repression are acting
together. The detainees (who had various injuries because of police
brutality) were refused medical examination when they asked for
medical examination in hospitals in Moscow (russian healthcare system
is subservient to state), prosecutor office ignores witness reports
given by Seva's friends, while fake "chance witnesses of assault on
police officers" start to appear out of nowhere and by some quirk of
fate they turn out to be cops as well. As the events unfold, the case
brought up against militia department for illegal detainment and
torture of Seva and his friends, is stalled in spite of large amounts
of evidence. Prosecutor "loses" different documents regarding the
case, sometimes he just "forgets" to make another move in the
investigation. This is typical for Russia as well.

It is obvious, that the state takes this issue very seriously: either
Seva goes to prison and torturers in militia uniform are thus
absolved of any charges, or state admits numerous torturers and
fascists among the number of its "sworn to serve and protect" militia
officers.

We ask you to support the Global Action Day in support of Seva
Ostapov on July the 18th and carry out solidarity actions near the
Russian embassy in your country (or any other russian office instead
in case your town is lucky to have no russian embassies nearby)!

More on this in English:
http://ru.indymedia.org/newswire/display/20329/index.php
http://avtonom.org/index.php?nid=1697

Contact: antisokolniki@gmail.com