Alexey Gaskarov
Alexey Gaskarov was born in 1985. After graduating from the Finance Academy of the Government of the Russian Federation in 2007, he worked as an economic consultant.
Gaskarov became a civic activist in the early 2000s. In 2006, he began working with the Institute for Collective Action (IKD), where he was involved in supporting and coordinating social movements. Around the same time, he also became a spokesperson for the anti-fascist movement, provoking interest in him on the part of the FSB (the Russian Federal Security Service, the successor agency to the KGB) and Center “E” (the Interior Ministry’s Center for Combating Extremism).
On July 28, 2010, Gaskarov was present in his capacity as a journalist for IKD’s news web site (ikd.ru) when a group of leftist activists attacked the town hall in Khimki, a suburb of Moscow, to protest the Khimki administration’s support of the clear-cutting of the Khimki Forest to make way for a highway. The next day police detained him on suspicion of disorderly conduct. Gaskarov spent the next few months in a pretrial detention facility, while a massive international solidarity campaign in support of him and his fellow “Khimki hostage” Maxim Solopov unfolded. Gaskarov maintained his innocence the entire time. On October 22, 2010, a court released Gaskarov on his own recognizance. On June 24, 2011, the Khimki City Court acquitted him, and on September 29 of the same year, the Moscow Regional Court confirmed the acquittal. On April 27, 2012, the Tverskaya District Court in Moscow ordered the Finance Ministry to pay Gaskarov 50,000 rubles for illegal criminal prosecution.
On May 6, 2012, Gaskarov took part in the opposition’s March of the Millions, in Moscow. During the mass arrests of marchers on Bolotnaya Square, he asked riot police, “What are you doing?” Police responded by hitting him in the face with a rubber truncheon, knocking him to the ground, and kicking him. Gaskarov received lacerations to the head and nearly lost consciousness. In the emergency room in Zhukovsky, where Gaskarov lives, doctors gave him three stitches.
On May 28, 2012, Gaskarov filed a complaint about this incident with Vadim Yakovenkov, head of the main investigative department in the Moscow office of the Russian Federal Investigative Committee. In the complaint, Gaskarov noted that the actions of the police officers who beat him were punishable under Article 286, Part 3, Paragraphs A and B of the Russian Federation Criminal Code (abuse of authority involving the use of violence and non-lethal weapons). Gaskarov admitted that he would be unable to identify the officers who beat him, as they had not been wearing badges and the visors of their helmets concealed their faces. He added, however, that the criminals could be identified in photos and videos of the incident. Investigators, however, took no action in response to Gaskarov’s complaint.
In October 2012, Gaskarov was elected the Russian opposition’s Coordinating Council. He took first place on the slate of leftist candidates, garnering nearly twenty-three thousand votes.
In late March 2013, Gaskarov was likewise elected to the Zhukovsky People’s Council, the first alternative municipal council in recent Russian history. Gaskarov took third place in those elections.
On April 28, 2013, Gaskarov was detained as a suspect in the Bolotnaya Square Case. He was taken to the Investigative Committee, where he was “identified” by two secret witnesses. He was then charged with violation of Article 212, Part 2 (involvement in riots) and Article 318, Part 1 (use of violence against authorities) of the Criminal Code. Investigators allege that Gaskarov “led a group of people who took an active part in the riots” and personally beat a police officer who was detaining demonstrators.
Svetlana Sidorkina, of the Agora Association, is Gaskarov’s legal counsel in this case.
