Basmanny Court delivers guilty verdict against participant in a meeting for peace in Chechnya

A hearing of the administrative case against Mikhail Kukobaka, an activist of the Transnational Radical Party and former Soviet political prisoner, was held at the Basmanny District Court on March 2. Mikhail Kukobaka was detained by the police on Lubyanskaya Square on February 23, during a meeting for peace and democracy in Chechnya banned by the Moscow authorities and timed to the 60th anniversary of the genocide of the Chechen people ordered by Stalin. He was charged with "breaking the established order of the holding of meetings" by Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences.

Lawyer Karina Moskalenko insisted on Mikhail Kukobaka's innocence as he exercised his right to freedom of assembly secured by Article 31 of the Russian Constitution and Article 11 of the European Convention. After spending five hours in a decision room, Judge Stanislav Safonov rendered a decision to find Mikhail Kukobaka guilty of breaking Article 20.2 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offences and to impose a fine on him at the rate of 700 rubles.

Karina Moskalenko and Mikhail Kukobaka himself will appeal this decision in the Moscow City Court and then (if the Moscow City Court upholds the illegal decision) in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Editors note: See also the article "NGO activists detained during a meeting on February 23 to stand trial on March 16 and 17".