GAZ employees collectively complained about the protesters in support of Navalny. The lawyers who were contacted by the detainees at the rallies in support of Navalny on January 31 found more than 10 administrative cases with similar testimonies.
All of them were allegedly compiled from the words of the employees of the Gorky Automobile Plant. As an anonymous source at GAZ told our colleagues, the employees of the enterprise were promised to pay a monetary «bonus» for this.
On the afternoon of January 31, people again approached the main pedestrian street of Nizhny Novgorod, dissatisfied with the replacement of Alexei Navalny’s suspended sentence with a real one.
At the entrance, unknown activists offered to take a poster with the opposition slogan:
— Take, we all live in a democratic country!
— And then return the posters to you?
— Yes, find me later, return!
The people with these posters were the first to be detained. On this day, the security forces did not look as confused as they had a week before. They grabbed me hard and took me to the paddy wagon.
In total, according to police estimates, about 500 people took part in the protest action that day in Nizhny Novgorod alone. They detained 338 — that is, about 70% of the participants in the unauthorized rally. Administrative cases were initiated against all of them.
Later, the detainees began to be taken to police stations en masse. One of the detainees wrote that he was in a cramped hall full of people. He suggests that it was then that he contracted the coronavirus. This participant of the rally, like hundreds of others, had to spend the night in a special isolation ward, and then receive a fine of 10 thousand rubles.
«It is obvious that these similar explanations were» eshniki »
Lawyers Sergei Kulikov and Andrei Valenkov managed to get acquainted with the administrative cases of 13 detainees. In all these cases, the main evidence against the offender is based on the testimony of GAZ workers:
— There are such explanations in almost every case. And, as we understood, each district had its own such «witness» attached. The structure of the cases is as follows: a protocol and a primary report, then in addition to them — this is an explanation, and at the end of the case they pasted another report, almost in court already, — Valenkov tells about the oddities in the cases.
Explanations — testimony and part of the administrative material, which are in addition to the reports and protocols of the police. Since the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are not participants in the case, the documents they have drawn up are just supplemented by these explanations. They are evidence that there was an action, there were some slogans and some people who were detained for this.
All explanations must be specific. That is, a person suspected of committing an administrative offense commits something, and a witness can confirm that this particular person did it.
The witness must give an explanation separately about each detainee, but all reports and explanations in these cases are abstract. According to the lawyer, all this is necessary so that there is at least something in the case file, on the basis of which a person can be brought to administrative responsibility. The original administrative materials consisted of one protocol and one report.
— This is not enough, for this they invented these witnesses and then an additional report, which was drawn up by the «eshniki» (employees of the center for combating extremism under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. — Ed.), Which essentially repeats the explanations of these witnesses, because Obviously, the explanations of these witnesses were also «eshniki», — suggests Andrei Valenkov.
In addition, the lawyer notes that the cases, drawn up in a hurry and considered promptly, did not contain explanations of the witnesses, but those that received a move later already had such additional materials.
In fact, no one invented the witnesses, they really were:
— I was a witness and did it for free, in my conviction — we will proudly inform us one of the workers.
«Do you want there to be no war?»
A GAZ employee, who wished to remain anonymous, told NN.RU that at the end of January the foremen of the polling stations approached him and his colleagues with questions whether they want to work here and whether they want there to be no war? After that, they allegedly offered to go to a rally in the city center, and then write a statement to the police. According to the source of NN.RU, the approximate text of the explanation was given to them even before the rally.
— The plant did not work on holidays, and then another two weeks — as usual. This period is the most difficult for hard workers from year to year. We started working on January 25, and it turns out that this month there are only five working days. Therefore, our salary in February is simply scanty. It was then that this hype with Navalny and Putin rushed, — says the worker.
In addition, according to the source, the authorities promised all those who agreed to write bonuses from 3 to 8 thousand rubles. Due to the difficult financial situation and the short working month, many of them agreed.
— For hard workers, this is good money. Our usual salary is from 18 to 30 thousand. There is also a practice when an employee is asked to write out a bonus from the bonus fund, which the master cannot possibly appropriate for himself. The maximum is ten thousand, but five will need to be given to the boss. Because of these familiar shenanigans, many agreed. There are actually more statements, of course, — emphasizes the employee of the car plant, who wished to remain anonymous.
GAZ: The opportunity to campaign at the plant is categorically excluded
The press service of the Gorky Automobile Plant denied information that the employees could have been campaigning illegally, and even more so that they could be paid money for this. The management believes that everything that happened is a provocation:
— The possibility for employees to be able to campaign or reward for any private civil initiatives is categorically excluded at GAZ. The bonuses procedure at the plant is absolutely transparent and built on specific performance indicators; bonuses based on any other criteria are impossible. We are absolutely sure that the statement about the organization of such incentives at the plant is misinformation, so the company intends to organize its own investigation in order to find the source of this misinformation and deal with it in court, » the press service of the plant told NN.RU.
The official commentary also contains information that the system of the «fund of craftsmen», when foremen had the opportunity to independently reward workers for production achievements, has not existed at GAZ for a very long time. Therefore, the company believes that the one who disseminates this tried to use information about the bonus system that was once in effect at the plant in order to «give the appearance of the credibility of this provocation.»
What will the witnesses from GAZ say
— On the day of the rally, I filmed everything that happened as a blogger. At this time, two young men in uniform came up to me, took me by the arms and took me to the bus. I tried to say that the journalist did not help. — The detained Alexander Pichugin tells. They took me to the Kanavinsky District Department of Internal Affairs, put me in the assembly hall. It was funny: on one side there were detainees, on the other — the police, who periodically changed, while we were sitting there for almost a day.
— The procedure for drawing up the protocol was strange. I visited four different offices with two different investigators, and then stood for another hour and a half with the guard in the «dressing room» in front of the duty unit, so that a decision was made on what to do with me. Initially, I was charged with an arrest article, as a protester, but then the court re-qualified it for a softer one, but at that moment I was nevertheless detained. We sat there for a day, then they took us to court.
— The protocol indicated that I was allegedly moving somewhere, shouting slogans and interfering with the movement of pedestrians. Actually, I just stood there, so it seems to me that this protocol was drawn up even before the action, just typical. They did not know how everything would develop, but in fact the action ended before it even started — almost everyone was tied up in the square, there were more security officials than those gathered. At the trial, we watched a video filmed by the police, which shows that I am just standing and filming what is happening on my phone, I do not create any interference. Maybe at the court of appeal I will still have the testimony of the same «witnesses» from GAZ, they have the same written there.
“I got the impression that everyone in the police department understood perfectly well what kind of bullshit they had to do. They, too, rolled their eyes and took one after another when they brought in the detainees. It all looked very phantasmagoric. Some kind of absurdity at maximum speed.
Rallies in support of opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who received a real prison sentence in the Yves Rocher case, were held across the country on January 23 and 31. The second demonstration was brutally suppressed by the security forces. Administrative proceedings are still ongoing.
After the protests, NN.RU spoke with political scientists and experts about why people took to the streets and what role Navalny played in this. One of the interlocutors considered that there were not so many supporters of the opposition politician among those who took to the streets on January 23 and 31, and people actually accumulated irritation from coronavirus restrictions, a drop in living standards, a deterioration in the general atmosphere and an increase in anxiety from an unclear future.
