News

In the Southern Federal District (SFD), on the third day of voting at presidential election, complaints were recorded about ballot stuffing, violation of voting secrecy, and an attack on an observer. According to the "Map of Election Violations" project, a total of 142 violations were reported.

Employees of the Grozny SIZO (pre-trial prison), where Adam Kadyrov had beaten Nikita Zhuravel up, were punished after a check, the document posted in the "Baza" Telegram channel has informed.

In Chechnya, a state servant has told about forced participation in the so-called "carousels," and a voter from the Stavropol Territory complained about the demand of his company bosses to vote for a specific candidate.

In Southern Russia, the number of violations fixed at the presidential election has reached at least 123, including 114 in the Southern Federal District (SFD) and nine in the North- Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), the "Caucasian Knot" has calculated based on the data from the "Map of Election Violations" project.

At least three cases of obstructing the work of observers and one case of pressure on a member of the election commission were recorded on the second day of voting in the Krasnodar Territory.

Mukhammed Djambulatov, a resident of Dagestan, who was arrested after laying flowers at the memorial to Alexei Navalny, intends to appeal against his arrest, but fears further persecution after law enforcers' threats.

A portrait of a presidential candidate at a polling station and publications in his support were spotted in Chechnya after voting began at presidential election. In the Stavropol Territory, a senior official urged residents to vote for a specific candidate, voters have informed.

After reports about searches of the homes of the Stavropol activists who had collected signatures in support of Boris Nadezhdin, some observers failed to find themselves on the lists; and a number of activists refused due to fear of persecution. Voters often entered the polling station in Stavropol where the exit poll was held in groups, activists have informed.

In Krasnodar, election observers have faced pressure exerted on them via their families or employers; therefore they were forced to reduce their presence time at polling stations.

In the Krasnodar Territory, election observers complained of violations during mobile voting and obstacles with their work at polling stations. In the Volgograd Region, portraits of the incumbent president hang at five polling stations.

Tamerlan Ivanov, a resident of Nalchik, who was found guilty of discrediting the Russian Armed Forces with a pacifist inscription on his backpack, challenged the fine, but the Supreme Court (SC) of Kabardino-Balkaria has refused to cancel the punishment.

In the Rostov Region, a court sentenced Vladislav Kovalyov to a fine, recognizing posts on his Telegram channel as discrediting the Russian Armed Forces.

After the detention, law enforcers beat Makhachkala resident Mukhammed Djambulatov, who laid flowers at a spontaneous memorial to Alexei Navalny, and forced him to refuse a medical examination, which resulted in his arrest for 11 days.

The local offices of presidential candidates actually did not work; and the candidates themselves, who visited Volgograd, conducted extremely careful campaigning, without criticizing authorities and without raising sensitive topics, a journalist has noted, also telling about obstacles when visiting polling stations.

The 70-year-old human rights defender Oleg Orlov*, sentenced to freedom deprivation for his pacifist position, has received an offer at the SIZO (pre-trial prison), where he is kept, to take part in the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine.

The authorities of North Ossetia publicly reprimanded parents of the teenagers, who recorded a comic video about the special military operation (SMO), in order to defuse the situation and prevent attacks by SMO supporters on their children or on the parents themselves, bloggers believe.

Officers of the Centre to Combat Extremism (CCE, also known as Centre “E”) in the Stavropol Territory have been conducting searches for several days now at the apartments of the activists who were collecting signatures in support of the nomination of Boris Nadezhdin as a presidential candidate.

Residents of the village of Kabardinka Anna Gubanova and Anna Charochidi request investigators to check the actions of the local officials who are trying to recognize their houses as illegal buildings. The women and their families are at risk of being left on the streets after participating in the elections.

Policemen have been holding Roman Mirkin, a Pyatigorsk resident, for the second day, accusing him of displaying prohibited symbols in his personal correspondence on the Telegram. Mirkin had also placed posts in support of Alexei Navalny in social networks, human rights defenders have informed.

The prosecutor's office and the court were notified by his sister about the hunger strike of human rights defender Igor Nagavkin, who has been rejecting food at the SIZO (pre-trial prison) of the city of Leninsk for a week already, although the law obliges SIZO bosses to report about detainees' refusal to take meals.