The Investigative Committee will perform a check with regard to the police officers who tore off activist Olga Shalina’s baptismal cross

News

25 August 2021

Lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Georgiy Ivanov informed that the Investigative Committee is conducting a check with regard to the police officers’ abuse of office (Article 286 of the Criminal Code). 

22 June 2021, activist of unregistered party “Drugaya Rossiya E.V.Limonova” Olga Shalina together with Mariya Alekhina with Pussy Riot and Aleksandr Polozun went to get vaccinated. When they were riding in a taxi, a police car blocked their way, and four police officers detained the activists without disclosing the reason.

According to Shalina, they were taken to the Kunstevsky Department of the Interior. During the personal search the police officers demanded that Olga removed her baptismal cross before being put to the cell. She refused. In response, she was taken to the corridor where there are no surveillance cameras.   Three male police officers applied combat technique against Olga, putting an armlock on her, and cut the baptismal cross rope with scissors. After that she was taken to her cell. As a result of the police officers’ actions, Olga was inflicted bodily injuries on her arms and body, which were registered on the next day by the officers of the special detention facility. 

On 23 July, Georgiy Ivanov, Olga’s representative and lawyer with the Committee Against Torture, applied a crime report. Later, when he applied to the Investigative Committee, he learned that the pre-investigation check with regard of the police officers under Article 286 of the Criminal Code (abuse of office) was ongoing, and his report was added to the materials of the check.

“I am surprised with the fact that the Investigative Committee performs the check of the legality of the police officers’ actions against the political activists at its own initiative. According to our experience in the cases of the victims of the mass rallies that took place this winter in Moscow, it was no use to even expect the attempt to conduct investigation based on Olga’s complaint against the illegal violence of the police”, – Georgiy Ivanov commented.

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