Jesus and his dog violated Moscow's coronavirus lockdown last month, now the police want a word with the journalists who published footage of his arrest

The Russian Interior Ministry’s internal security department questioned two journalists from the news outlet Baza due a viral video of the arrest of Moscow resident Jesus Vorobyov. 

Baza uploaded the video in question on April 5, the day after police detained Vorobyov while he was walking his dog near Patriarch’s Pond in downtown Moscow. Off-camera, a man’s voice can be heard asking for permission to take the dog home. He then says that he wants the police “to die along with their children, wives, [and] mothers.”

In addition to confirming that their journalists met with law enforcement on May 6, Baza says that it was the Moscow Mayor’s Office that took an interest in the video’s origins. As a result, Baza employees were called in for a voluntary interview with the police. After they initially did not attend, law enforcement came to their respective homes. According to Baza, one employee was not home at the time, but the relatives of the other employee were “afraid of the sudden, urgent, ‘voluntary’ questioning.”  

The Moscow Mayor’s Office amicably asked the [Interior Ministry] to find out where the video — filmed from the van in which Jesus, in an entirely un-Christian way, [told] the police to go to hell — came from. The incident with the dog hit the Moscow authorities’ image hard — in the very center of the capital, where the country’s best people live, this is a very well-known scandal.

Jesus Vorobyov was detained on April 4, after police claimed that he was walking in a closed park and had been there with his dog for too long. Vorobyov allegedly did not respond to the patrol officers when they told him that he was violating the self-isolation regime, but then later argued with police.

Vorobyov claims that the police did not allow him into the area around Patriarch’s Pond, even though there were other people there, and says that the police officers detained him within a minute of speaking to him. Afterwards, when he was taken to the police station, his dog (named Plato), was left alone on the street. The dog later managed to return home.

On April 6, Vorobyov was fined 1,000 rubles (about $13.50) for disobeying police.