Bolotnaya Square case

The Bolotnaya Square case is a criminal case by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation on the counts of alleged massive riot (article 212 of the Russian Criminal code) and alleged violence against police (article 318 of the Russian Criminal code) during the "March of the Millions" on May 6, 2012 on the Bolotnaya square in Moscow. The demonstration was one of the biggest protests in Russia since the 1990s.

The Bolotnaya Square case is largely recognized as politically motivated both internationally and in Russia. The Russian Human Rights Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin repeatedly stated that "there were no riots in Bolotnaya Square" and "innocent people were subjected to criminal sanctions".The European Court of Human Rights issued numerous verdicts where the court ruled that in the Bolotnaya Square case Russia violated European Convention on Human Rights. The European Parliament issued resolutions 2013/2667(RSP) of June 13, 2013 and resolution 2014/2628(RSP) of March 13, 2014 on the political nature of the Bolotnaya Square case. Prisoners of the case were recognized as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International.

Overall, more than 30 people were officially accused, four of them women. Most of them were kept under arrest, several under house arrest, and one escaped abroad.

Fearing persecution, several other people, who had not yet been officially accused, left Russia and have been granted asylum in Spain, Sweden, Lithuania, Estonia and Germany.

The persecutions under the Bolotnaya square case are still ongoing. Maksim Panfilov was arrested in April 2016. Dmitry Buchenkov was detained on December 2, 2016. He was then released from jail und is currently under house arrest.

The case also included a crackdown against the Russian opposition leaders. Houses of Alexey Navalny, Sergey Udaltsov, Kseniya Sobchak, Boris Nemtsov, Ilya Yashin and Pyotr Verzilov were searched.Garry Kasparov and Sergei Guriev left Russia in 2013.

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