The editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow, Alexei Venediktov, confirmed to Sputnik on Thursday that the radio station's journalist, Tatyana Felgengauer, has been detained over picketing near the Moscow Police headquarters
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th May, 2020) The editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow, Alexei Venediktov, confirmed to Sputnik on Thursday that the radio station's journalist, Tatyana Felgengauer, has been detained over picketing near the Moscow Police headquarters.
"I can confirm this. There was an individual picket at the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of the city of Moscow in support of journalist Ilya Azar, who was arrested for 15 days. Lawyers have already been informed. Lawyers [Sergei] Badamshin and Kaloi Akhilgov are already working," Venediktov said when asked to confirm Felgengauer's detention.
Meanwhile, the editor-in-chief of the MediaZona news outlet, Sergey Smirnov, also confirmed his detention to Sputnik, saying that he was detained 10 seconds into his picket.
"They [police] detained me after 10 seconds and justified it by saying it was not allowed to hold any street events. But I did not quite understand, because, in my opinion, I did not even stand there for 10 seconds. Three seconds, maybe ... They calmly escorted me to the prisoner transport vehicle," Smirnov said, adding that journalist Aleksander Plyushchev had also been detained.
Earlier in the day, the Moscow City Court sentenced Ilya Azar, a journalist with Russia's Novaya Gazeta newspaper, to 15 days of administrative arrest for holding a single-person picket on May 26. Azar was protesting in support of Vladimir Vorontsov, the administrator of the online community, "Police Ombudsman."
