22 participants of an anti-corruption meeting in Makhachkala waiting for the judgment in an investigative isolation ward

The detained participants of an anti-corruption meeting held from 19:00 to 20:00 Moscow time, October, 3, in the central square of Makhachkala were moved to investigative isolation ward No 1 of the capital of Dagestan. 22 persons are currently kept there, six more were fined and released. The organizers of the meeting consider that it was legal and call the arrests and legal procedures against their supporters “infinite lawlessness”.

The cases of six detainees were considered on October, 5, by magistrate's court of Sovietsky district of Makhachkala. All of them were convicted according to clause of violation of public order and disobedience to the police of the Code of administrative violations and fined to sums 500 to 1000 rubles.

Lawyer and human rights activist Rasul Kadiev tried to look into the case. “These cases are considered by one judge only and only one officer of law enforcement bodies deals with the cases of the detained participants of the meeting.

Therefore they just had no time yesterday to consider the cases of all those detained. Generally, there is no order at all there, just a complete mess”, Rasul Kadiev said to the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

Upon the detainees’ request their attorneys entered a motion of establishing legitimacy of the meeting. The organizers are sure that the meeting has been quite legal. All the necessary documents were submitted to the respective authorities beforehand. This was reported by the host of the meeting, Chairman of Executive board of ДРО “Russian Union of Veterans of Afghanistan” Shamil Khadulaev.

“When we submitted the documents on the meeting we specified that it would be held in the central square of Makhachkala but the authorities advised us to organize it in Rodopsky boulevard because of a criminogenic situation in the republic. We disagreed for the reason that Rodopsky boulevard was not safeguarded at all and anything could happen there, we just feared for the people’s lives”, Shamil Khadulaev says.