Deputy Head of the Nizhny Novgorod Administration Mariya Kholkina reported to one of the organizers of charitable rock festival «Music Against Torture» (it was supposed to take place at the Grebnoy Canal) Artem Proudnikov, that in case the event is conducted it will be declared unauthorized and the organizers will be apprehended by the police and brought to administrative responsibility. In addition, according to our information, a lot of owners of the concert venues of the city received calls from some man who introduced himself as a “representative of the security service”, with a highly persistent suggestion to refuse to conduct this concert – failing which they should be prepared to numerous checks and troubles. Despite that, the charitable rock festival will take place, and it will be conducted at HARAT’S PUB.
On 28 June of «Music Against Torture» festival organizers Artem Proudnikov was called to the administration of the Nizhny Novgorod for a conversation, in the course of which Deputy Head of City Administration Mariya Kholkina informed him that the planned activity organized together with the Committee for the Prevention of Torture is unauthorized with all the ensuing consequences. Head of the Department of Public Order Organization and Interaction with Executive Authorities and Local Governments of the Nizhny Novgorod region of the Chief Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia for the Nizhny Novgorod region Aleksandr Pinevich, expressed even more specifically, having told Proudnikov that he could not conduct a concert, and he was warning about if beforehand.
Artem Proudnikov is the organizer of numerous concert activities in Nizhny Novgorod, including at “NeTramplin Party”. Concerts of such format successfully and without hindrance were conducted at one and the same location four times already, one of them – this year. And not a single time the Ministry of the Interior, the City Administration or owners of the venue where these activities were held, had any problems with that.
Suddenly the problems appeared a few days prior to opening of the charitable rock festival «Music Against Torture», dedicated to the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Mrs Kholkina for some reason considered that such an even should be necessarily agreed with the city administration.
According to lawyer with the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Dmitry Kazakov, such a requirement is illegal: «In her conversation with the organizer Mariya Kholkina referred to the “Procedure of arranging social activities, theatrical entertainment events, sports and advertisement activities with the city administration. Meanwhile, this document does not explain the mere notion of mass event which should be authorized. Instead, this notion is provided in the Nizhny Novgorod region Government resolution “On the procedure of conducting mass social activities, theatrical entertainment events and advertisement events in the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region”. Item 3 of this resolution defines which cases require authorizations: if the number of the event participants exceeds two thousand people; if the mass event is planned to be held in the territories located at a distance less than 100 meters from forests (forest areas) and if mass event is planned in the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod acropolis. The rock festival planned for 1 July does not correspond to any of these criteria».
As we have previously reported, previously the Nizhny Novgorod administration refused to authorize the picket in Nizhny Novgorod, referring to the fact that Bolshaya Pokrovskaya street, where it was planned, was not designed for such activities.
Despite the active resistance of the City Administration, the charitable concert will still take place at HARAT’S PUB at the following address: Nizhny Novgorod, Varvarskaya St., house 32. Start at 16.00.
In the framework of the event a charity fundraising for Aleksandr Dmitriyev, who suffered from police torture, will be organized. After this incident, Aleksandr became a disabled of group II and requires continuous treatment.
At the present time Aleksandr is diagnosed with a number of conditions: invalidity of group II, ischemic heart disease; cardiac angina, idiopathic hypertensia of stage 3, risk 4; post-stroke post-traumatic dyscirculatory encephalopathy of stage 3; widespread atherosclerosis: cerebral vascular atherosclerosis; obliterating atherosclerosis of arteries of lower limb, occlusion of the right arteria and stenosis of the left silent neck artery; stenosis of iliac and thigh arteries; HCV (hepatitis С); moderately severe age-related presbyopia of both eyes; angiopathy of eyeground vessels.
Due to the state of his health Aleksandr needs to take expensive medications as per courses of use (Concor, Tenox, Cardiomagnil, Plavix, Trombo, Physiotenz), undergo annual sanatorium therapy of cardio-vascular diseases exacerbated because of torture, as well as annual hospital admission to neurological and cardiological departments of medical establishments for treatment of the existing diseases and traumas which are also a consequence of tortures.
Every year maintaining his satisfactory health condition requires about one hundred and twenty thousand rubles.
As we have previously reported, the entrance to the concert will be free and each guest would be able to donate any sum of money as a charity.
All the collected money will go to Aleksandr Dmitriyev.