On March 16, the Sovetsky District Court of Makhachkala sentenced one of the participants in the anti-mobilization rallies that took place in Dagestan on September 24-25, 2022 after the announcement of partial mobilization. Mukhamed-Afandi Asipov received a 4-year suspended sentence for using violence against a government official (Article 318 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Asipov was detained during a rally on the central square in Makhachkala. As the victim, a local police officer who dispersed the demonstrators, told the court, 50-100 people gathered there with slogans, through which they “showed their dissatisfaction with the conduct of the SVO.” According to the district police officer, he asked the citizens to disperse, “to which Asipov said: “Disperse yourself!” punched him in the face and tried to escape, but was detained by him using physical force, in accordance with the Federal Law “On Police”. At the time of the use of physical force, “this citizen continued to strike, trying to free himself and hide, wringing his hands,” which caused damage to his health.
The verdict states that the defendant admitted his guilt and repented of his crime. According to him, that day he was walking around the city with his brothers. “There were no intentions to take part in the rally or strike police officers. While waving his arms, maybe he accidentally hit his hand.”
During the entire six months that the investigation and trial lasted, Asipov was in custody; he was released only after the verdict.
As New DOSH wrote, the announcement of partial mobilization was met with mass protests in Dagestan, and not only in the cities. On September 22, in the Babayurt district, protesters blocked the federal highway. On September 25, in the village of Endirei, more than a hundred local residents, mostly men, went out to a spontaneous protest and blocked the Makhachkala-Khasavyurt highway. Police fired into the air in an attempt to force protesters off the road.
In Makhachkala, rallies lasted for two days. On September 25, those gathered at the Puppet Theater in the center of the Dagestan capital chanted “No to war!” and “We are against mobilization!” On September 26, protesters gathered in the central square of Makhachkala, where the police and the National Guard were deployed. They detained more than 120 people, and the arrests were carried out with unjustified use of violence. Thus, security forces beat an ambulance paramedic who was taking a patient to the hospital. It seemed to the police that the doctor was filming what was happening on his phone, they dragged him out of the car, beat him and took him to the police department. About a hundred participants in the rallies were brought to administrative responsibility, 30 became involved in criminal cases.
According to OVD-info, at least five of them have already been sentenced. On December 15, 2022, the Sovetsky District Court sentenced Gafar Isaev to two years of suspended imprisonment. On December 20, the same court imposed a fine of 50 thousand rubles on Isa Abdulaev. On December 28, Muhammad Magomedov received a suspended sentence of four years. On February 10, the court sentenced Adam Gadzhiev to one and a half years in prison; on February 17, Kemran Agabekov was fined 150 thousand rubles. All of them were charged with an article on the use of violence against security forces (Article 318 of the Criminal Code).