Solo picketers detained in Volgograd released

The three young people detained today in Volgograd during picketing at celebrations of the 70^th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad and Putin's arrival were released from the police.

On February 2, in Volgograd, during a solo picket, Boris Stikhin, an anarchist, was detained by the police without presenting any charges. The other detainees were Nikolai Cherniavskiy, the coordinator of the "Left-Wing Front", and a 14-year-old boy Vladlen Chekunov.

A police spokesman said that it could not be treated as detention. "Chekunov, Stikhin and Cherniavskiy were not detained. They were interviewed in order to collect materials," Alexander Balashov, and operative on duty officer of the OVD (Interior Division, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to the policeman, the reason for delivery of the activists to the OVD was in their "unauthorized picketing."

The father of Vladlen Chekunov has expressed his outrage with the police. "I got a call from the second district police station of the Krasnooktyabrskiy District; and they told me to come over and take my son. I asked them to let him go, but they said that they would give him to me personally," said Stanislav Chekunov.

The father said that at the OVD "pressure was exerted on his son and him."

"If the pressure on us continues, I'll turn to the Commissioner for Children's Rights," Stanislav Chekunov has warned.

So far, there are no comments of the police in connection with the exerted pressure.