Judge of the Safonovsky District Court of the Smolensk Region Vadim Solovyov prohibited photography, video and audio recording at a meeting on the administrative protocol on violation of the law on “foreign agents”, compiled in relation to Ilya Yashin.
This happened after the politician read out his poems in the courtroom, in which, in particular, he called the war “the heavy cross of the entire people.” Judge Solovyov asked him to “change his rhetoric regarding the assessment of the special military operation” and warned that otherwise he would be forced to “interrupt the photo-video recording.” The politician continued reading, and the judge, noting that Yashin “does not respond to comments,” banned filming.
As a Mediazona correspondent reports, Solovyov also warned about possible liability for disseminating Ilya Yashin’s speech. After that, he postponed the trial to March 14.
The meeting was held in open mode; Judge Soloviev did not make a decision to close it. According to Article 24.3 of the Administrative Code, if the administrative process is not closed, then those present in the hall have the right to audio record the meeting.
“Today Ilya Yashin gave a very bright speech in Berkovich style, in verse. The speech was bright, sharp, polemical. After his speech, the judge prohibited audio and video recording, citing the fact that the speech itself was “defamatory.” The position is clear, in Moscow courts they act more harshly, they don’t allow you to finish and they cut you off. At least, the very fact that the judge [at first] allowed video recording of the process indicates that in the Safonovsky court there is openness and respect for the law,” the politician’s lawyer Mikhail Biryukov told Mediazona.
At the same time, Judge Soloviev returned the materials to Roskomnadzor representatives for the second time, without recognizing them as acceptable evidence. According to lawyer Biryukov, to confirm that Ilya Yashin was indeed recognized as a “foreign agent,” the RKN provided “a virtually unreadable screenshot from the Ministry of Justice website,” but the judge was “very meticulous” about the materials and demanded “a properly executed document.”
Today’s meeting is the first after the death of Yashin’s friend and ally Alexei Navalny. Yashin has already spoken out about Navalny’s death in his Telegram channel.
Yashin is serving a sentence in the case of “fake”. In December 2022, he was sentenced to eight and a half years of general imprisonment for a YouTube stream with a story about the murder of civilians in Bucha by the Russian military.