15:05, 5 October 2017

Kuban law enforcers again stop car with Ruslan Gvashev

Near the Krasnodar Territory Court where the session in the case of Ruslan Gvashev was to be held. October 5, 2017. Photo courtesy of the advocate Marina Dubrovina for the "Caucasian Knot"

In Sochi, after a three-hour detention, policemen allowed Ruslan Gvashev to continue his journey to Krasnodar to attend a court hearing. However, in Tuapse, the car with the activist was stopped again.

This morning, on the road from Sochi, about 30 people, including inspectors of the road-and-patrol service (known as DPS), stopped a car with Ruslan Gvashev, the 67-year-old former head of the Circassian Shapsug Council of Elders, who was travelling to Krasnodar to attend a court hearing to consider his complaint.

On June 2, the in Sochi, court recognized Ruslan Gvashev to be an organizer of an unsanctioned action near the Tulip Tree on the Adyg Memorial Day and fined him by 10,000 roubles. On September 11, Ruslan Gvashev declared hunger strike in protest against the court's decision.

Ruslan Gvashev and other Circassian activists were kept at the DPS checkpoint for three hours and then released. Meanwhile, the DPS inspectors detained an ambulance driver and his car. This was told to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by the activist.

He has noted that his health state deteriorated sharply after the forced stop.

"If the court grants my complaint, then I will go to a sanatorium in Nalchik to finish my hunger strike. If the court dismisses the complaint, I will go home to die," the activist has added.

Rights defender Valery Khatazhukov has reported that he filed to the UVD (Interior Department) a complaint about the illegal detention.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.

Author: Anna Gritsevich

Source: CK correspondent