The Kirovsky District Court in Yekaterinburg fined 16-year-old administrator of the Telegram channels “Yashcheritsa” and “Oppositioner,” Bogdan Bukharin, 1,000 rubles. The report came from a correspondent of the Yekaterinburg outlet It’s My City from the courtroom.
The teenager was charged under a protocol for displaying extremist symbols in the Telegram channel “Yashcheritsa.” The grounds were news posts published in May and June about criminal cases “for interaction” with the FBK and the RDK that included images of their logos.
Bukharin was absent from the hearing. As the teenager wrote on June 17 in his Telegram channel “Oppositioner,” he had already left Russia by then “because of political persecution.”
According to Bukharin, three days before leaving he was detained at Yekaterinburg’s Northern Station and taken to Police Department No. 11, where two protocols were drawn up against him. He was later released, but, the teenager says, security officers took his phone. He then started a new Telegram channel and said the old one, in his words, “had been seized by security forces.”
Bukharin also said that on June 14 his friend Andrei was detained together with him. The owner of “Yashcheritsa” claimed that after that Andrei disappeared and that his computer and phone were confiscated. Later, on June 19, Bukharin wrote in “Oppositioner” that Andrei had been released after the detention, but since then no longer “wants to communicate” with him.
Bukharin also wrote that at the end of May he was beaten twice in one day. According to him, he was first assaulted by a police officer and then by what he described as “Z-gopniks.” The teenager said he suspected he had suffered a traumatic brain injury and a concussion, and also complained of partial hearing loss.