MOSCOW, August 31 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court’s Presidium will consider cassation appeals against an order to detain the New Greatness (“Novoe Velichie”) movement’s activists Anna Pavlikova and Maria Dubovik, who stand charged with creating an extremist organization and currently are under house arrest, the court’s spokesperson Ulyana Solopova has told RAPSI.
The appeal hearing has been scheduled for September 4.
Case papers have been transferred to the Moscow City Court’s Presidium from the Supreme Court of Russia.
On August 17, the Dorogomilovsky District Court of Moscow granted a motion by investigators to release the defendants from jail. Pavlikova and Dubovik were placed under house arrest.
On August 16, the Supreme Court ordered the Moscow City Court’s Presidium to review an appeal against controversial detention of Pavlikova. Earlier, the court received complaints from the cabinet of Russia’s Human Rights Commissioner and the defendant’s lawyer.
Nine activists of the movement were arrested in March. Investigators stated that the defendants followed far-right ideas and that their leader claimed that he planned to establish a new order in Russia.
The New Greatness case became a subject of public controversy because the defense has information that the movement itself was organized by a law enforcement officer.
Chairman of the Presidential Council for Human Rights Mikhail Fedotov visited Pavlikova in a detention center and noted that she only recently turned 18 and has several chronic illnesses.