MOSCOW, July 22 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul) – A court in the town of Tver ruled to toughen up pretrial restrictions imposed on Shamil Kazakov standing charged with extremism and placed under house arrest by remanding him into custody, lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina told RAPSI on Friday.

“According to the prosecution, the ground to change the pretrial restrictions was the fact that some unknown person reposted his video, which was the subject of allegations on the part of law enforcers, on Youtube, whereas a call aimed to interfere with prosecution witnesses was made from a cellphone of Kozakov’s sister,” the lawyer said.

Sidorkina, who believes this information is only an inference and not a proof as required by law, is going to appeal against this court ruling.

Kazakov has placed on Youtube a secretly filmed video showing how he had been unofficially denied police enlistment because of his ethnic origin and religious beliefs. The young man was charged with instigating hatred towards a “social group” comprised of “officers of the Russia’s Interior Ministry Directorate for the Tver Region” and with insulting a representative of authority.

According to Sidorkina, Kazakov has dreamed to become a policeman since his childhood and graduated a school of law with honors, but was denied police employment.

“The charges are brought not in relation to the fact of the scandalous video publication, according to which no ‘Chechens, Dagestani, Tatars, and Muslims’ are admitted for service in the regional Tver directorate of the Russia’s Interior Ministry, but because of extremist and abusive comments the accused allegedly made to it in a fit of temper,” – the lawyer said.

The defendant maintains his innocence.