Detained at a peaceful demonstration in Russia: for freedom of speech and assembly, release of Alexey Navalny!

Hi everyone! We are Anna and Kamilya, students from Russia and we need your help!

January 31st, the second weekend into protests all over Russia, we’ve fallen victim to a brutal mass detention by police while on a peaceful demonstration in Kazan, Russia. Among other protesters, we marched peacefully along the central streets but were met with crude language, threats of beating and cruel, unjust detentions. We demanded freedom of speech and assembly, freedom to all falsely accused and arrested in order to threaten and repress, freedom and justice to Alexey Navalny, the most outspoken Kremlin opposition politician, and his allies.

This photo of Kamilya was taken 10 minutes prior to our detention. As you see, we came in peace.

They treated us like they were terrorists, they forced us to lie face down and kneel in the snow. We were held like this for 20 minutes before they took us to the police custody.

There were 8 people in one small police cell, we couldn’t breathe cause there was no sufficient air conditioning. We had to spend the night in the police van as they wanted to transfer us to the temporary detention centre, waiting in the line of other police vans full of detained citizens. It was about -20 Celsius, at some point we thought we could die of exposure.

At the temporary detention centre they unlawfully got our fingerprints off. We tried to uphold our tights but were threatened with 15 days imprisonment. In all, we were detained for 29 hours. Over 5000 people were arrested all over the country, with around 450 people in Kazan alone, most of whom were kept in heat or cold for 48 hours before the so-called court hearing. That being said, we were more fortunate than other protesters who got arrested for up to 15 days or girls detained in Kazan who were stripped naked for inspection.

Each of us was charged with an administrative penalty and received a fine in the amount of 10 000 RUB which roughly equals to 111 EUR, 133 USD, 97 GBP. We cannot afford to pay the sum by ourselves so we ask you to support us in our fight! If we raise more than we need to cover the fines, we will donate the rest to other protesters, our pals, friends and strangers, who faced police brutality and injustice in court.