Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court has ordered a 25-day arrest of Nikolai Lyaskin, an associate of opposition activist Alexei Navalny and head of the Progress Party’s Moscow division, for a repeat breach of the demonstrations and picketing regulations, Anti-Corruption Foundation lawyer Ivan Zhdanov told Interfax.
“The court has imposed a 25-day administrative arrest on Nikolai [Lyaskin],” Zhdanov said on March 27.
The court found Lyaskin guilty of an offense defined by Code of Administrative Offenses Article 20.2, Part 8 (a repeat breach of the assembly, rallying, demonstrations, marches and picketing regulations). The maximum possible punishment for this offence, if committed by an individual, is a 300,000-ruble fine or a 30-day administrative arrest.
Zhdanov could not say why the court qualified Lyaskin’s offence as a repeat one.
Lyaskin had earlier been taken to the district court from a hospital, where he had been previously transferred from the Luzhniki police station with suspected concussion. The hospital eventually diagnosed him with a soft-tissue injury of the head.
The activist was detained during an anti-corruption protest demonstration not cleared by the Moscow city administration and held in the center of Moscow on March 26.
It had also been reported earlier that 15-day administrative arrest had been imposed on Navalny on March 27 for resisting the police. He was also fined 20,000 rubles for organizing the unpermitted demonstration.
