In St. Petersburg, the writer and activist Natalia Sivokhina was detained with her three-year-old daughter for a “conversation with the E Center” <Department for Combating Extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation>. Boris Vishnevsky, deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, told The Insider about this. She is charged with an article about "discrediting the Russian army."
According to him, Sivokhina and her daughter, who were leaving the dentist, were detained by three police officers on Zagorodny Prospekt. They were taken to the 2nd police department in the Admiralteisky district. “When I asked the duty officer what was the matter, they answered me: “Center E will arrive now, he wants to have a conversation with her.” I asked: is it normal practice that when Center E wants to talk to someone, the person is brought to the police station with a three-year-old child? Of course, I didn’t receive an answer, ”says Vishnevsky.
Who brought Sivokhina and her daughter to the police is unknown. There is also no delivery protocol with the names and positions of employees, which is usually drawn up in such cases.
Now Vishnevsky, together with her husband Sivokhina, Archbishop and human rights activist Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko, is at the police station. They are waiting for a lawyer. “The child is inside < the department — The Insider > with the mother,” Mikhnov added. He later took the child home.
“My version is that since this is the center of E, they found something on her social networks. I think one of the authorities' admirers wrote a denunciation against her. Some regular Timur Bulatov < pro-government activist from St. Petersburg - The Insider >. We have such characters in the city who like to write denunciations, so that later people would be detained on this basis under the KUSP .” Later, Vishnevsky wrote that Sivokhina really began to be prosecuted "according to Bulatov's denunciation."
Sivokhina is a member of the St. Petersburg branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments (VOOPIIK) and the local PEN club, a participant in protest actions and a volunteer.