Crimean activist fined for social media post from 2010

Simferopol’s
railway court fined Alexei Shestakovych on Sept. 20, after the judge found him
guilty of distributing extremist material.

Shestakovych
posted the video “The last recording of the guys from the Primorsky
Partisans” – considered extremist material in Russia – on social media site
VKontakte six years ago. The Primorsky Partisans were a group of teenagers who
launched a guerrilla war against Russia’s corrupt police.

Shestakovych
said he was detained by officers from anti-extremism organisation Centre E on
Sept. 18, on the day of the Russian elections, for appearing to be on drugs.

But he said
once they brought him in for questioning the conversation turned to extremism,
the video post as well as the elections boycott.

“They had
the aim of getting me into their territory, where I was under their control,”
he said.

A number of
Crimean Tatars and activists have been calling for Crimeans to boycott the
Russian elections on Sept. 18, which have been recognized as illegal by many
European and Western countries.

Shestakovych
said they accused him of graffiting Simferopol walls with messages to boycott
the elections.

“I wasn’t planning any boycott activities but
I did support the boycott, that was my personal position,” he said.

“I think
this entire case is an attempt to put pressure on me for being politically
active.”

Crimea’s
centre for counteracting extremism started administrative proceedings against
Shestakovych that same day and he was called to appear in court on Sept. 20.

During the
hearing Shestakovych was questioned about citizenship, to which he answered
that he was a citizen of the world.

He
currently only has a Ukrainian passport.

The same
day another court rejected his appeal against a 20,000 ruble fine for organising
a picket line earlier this year in
support of political prisoners, including Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov.

Politically
motivated public gathering held without prior permission have become prohibited
in Crimea, since Russia annexed the peninsula.