A foto series on the policing of unauthorized protest events in Saint Petersburg

On Sunday, protests against the secret service FSB and its violations of the rule of law took place in eight Russian cities. The direct cause are the secret processes against two alleged networks of terrorists. Some observations on the policing of protests in Saint Petersburg.

„Every family in Russia is concerned by this case. We all have children and grandchildren that meet people through the internet. All of them could become victims of manipulation, victims of the FSB“, says an elderly woman that took part in the Saint Petersburg protest event.

Since the beginning of the year, 21 people are in custody. They allegedly planned coups and terrorist attacks. According to the families of the victims, those terrorist networks were not much more than innocent chat groups on Telegram. However, as the FSB has integrated secret agents into those networks, the matter became more serious. In the case of the network «Новое Величие» („New Dignity“), the lawyers of the suspects and their families claim that the secret service prompted the group into committing criminal offences. He initiated the three meet-ups of the Telegram group in a McDonald‘s in Moscow. In an abandoned place, he made the others practise to construct and throw Molotov cocktails.

Until now, the prosecutors have not publicly shared their version of the events in detail.

Furthermore, many of the detained testified that they were tortured during the investigation. Much of the evidence allegedly comes from confessions given under means of torture. Arman Saginbayev, a member of the group «Сеть» („Network“) testified: „They beat my head, they gave me electric shocks. They threatened that they would – one after the other – rape my girlfriend. This went on for four hours.“

The city administration did not give permission to organise the demonstration. Therefore, the protesters applied a strategy by which they hoped to avoid arrest and punishment. They split up into many separate one-person-demonstrations. Individuals stood at a corner of the Nevski prospect, the big central street of Saint-Petersburg, and held a banner.

However, this strategy did not work. Many of those one-person-demonstrations were quickly arrested. „We did not see that coming. In spring, we applied the same strategy of splitting up into one-person-demonstrations. Back then, nobody was arrested“, says Alexey, an activist who calls himself as a marxist.

After a while, more and more people that were recognized as supporters of the protester‘s cause gathered around the one-person-demonstrations that quickly appeared and disappeared again. Nevertheless, there was only a single moment in which people dared to shout some slogans, only during the arrest of one protester, bystanders and passersby briefly shouted „disgrace“ and „set free“.

In Moscow on the same day, 300-400 people gathered in front of the Lubyanka, the head quarter of the FSB. I called Dmitri Pchelintsev who took part in the gathering in front of the Lubyanka. His son, also called Dmitri, is one of the detained suspects in the terrorism case. He also claims that he has been tortured.

He has little information on the well-being of his son. The last time he saw him was on the 13th of September. He gets permission to visit his son, once every three months. „Sometimes, those visits are allowed to take an hour, sometimes only 15 minutes.“

I asked him if he considers the demonstrations to be helpful in his cause. He answered: „Hard to say. As for now, it seems as if the process will take place secretly in a military court. That means hree judges will decide on the case alone. The outcome will be particularly unpredictable, if no journalists and no public is allowed in court.“