Novorossisk court rejects suit of "curfew" opponents against prosecutor's office

Today, the court of the city of Novorossisk has rejected the suit lodged by Tamara Karastelyova, director of the Novorossisk Committee on Human Rights (NCHR), challenging the non-normative acts of the city's prosecutor's office, which had found attributes of extremism in criticism of key provisions of the so-called "curfew law". According to Ms Karastelyova, the today's trial "looked like a play": the decision was prepared in advance.

She told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that today the court marshals have let three activists of the organization, who had earlier taken part in rallies against the "curfew law", into the courtroom.

"When all the parties have spoken, and formally the procedure was observed, the judge left to elaborate his decision. He was back just in 30 seconds. It was seen that he was sick and tired of all that. He mocked and smiled, winked to the secretary, trying to demonstrate that he was sick and tired," said Tamara Karastelyova.

Today, according to her story, there were no special counteractions and attacks on human rights activists at the trial. "It turned out that no ordinary citizen could get to the open session with his passport. The secretary of the judge told everybody that should the judge allow, someone would be let in," she said.

"My advocate asked about the prosecutor's vision of enforcement of its requirements, what we should correct within a month, what our drawbacks were and in what way we should present the results to the prosecutor's office. The document of the prosecutor's office says nothing at all about the reason of the warnings and what we should correct," said Tamara Karastelyova.

According to her story, at one moment the representative of prosecutor's office said a "remarkable" phrase: "The prosecutor's office wants you to stop rallies and pickets."