Activists from the “Housing for the Military” movement were fined for holding a protest.

Senior Warrant Officer Gennady Manin and Major Sergey Baronin, who were detained during a picket outside the State Duma, have each been fined 20,000 roubles (approx. US$220). The Tverskoy District Court in Moscow found them guilty under the protest article (Part 5, Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences). The information was published by the press service of the Moscow courts.

Manin said that he and Baronin were detained about half an hour after the picket began, where they were holding a placard about the state not providing housing to military personnel. He also reported that their detention was the result of a call from “a certain general.”

“I asked on what grounds I was being taken away. The answer was simple: ‘there was a call from above.’ They took me away because of a call,” the activist noted.

In court, Manin and Baronin were assisted by defence lawyer Oskar Cherdzhiev from OVD-Info.