A court in Volgograd has fined local resident Tatyana Smetanko 10,000 rubles under a protocol for participating in a mass public event, the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported.
Smetanko and four other people recorded an appeal to Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, near a gas station in the city on July 16, complaining about a gasoline shortage and what they called “an unfair divide: the administration fills up its tank fully using fuel cards, while city residents are often simply refused.”
Authorities soon detained everyone who took part in the appeal, calling the recording an unauthorized mass event. One of them, lawyer Alexey Sevastyanov, was also sentenced to five days of arrest under the pretext of resisting police.
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