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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