Penza, 2 April 2015. PenzaNews. Dmitry Filyaev, first secretary of the Communist Party Penza city committee, commented for PenzaNews agency on the incident which occurred during the rally in defense of the rights and interests of gardeners, held near the city administration on Thursday, April 2, as a result of which he had to give explanations in the police department.

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According to the communist, the conflict was provoked by two officials of Penza administration: Vladimir Gurin, head of the Penza administration department on administrative bodies, public associations and religious organizations; and Oleg Vikulov, area administration management head of the same department.

The incident took place after the journalists who covered the picket had left, Dmitry Filyaev noted.

“I would not say that it was a detention, but I was explicitly invited to the police department No. 1 on Moskovskaya street, 72, to provide my explanations on an alleged violation of the current laws. I was not alone there, but with a friend, who was also one of the organizers of this picket. The fact is, these gentlemen from the city administration [Vladimir Gurin and Oleg Vikulov] do not know how to interpret the federal law No. 54. They were telling us that we violated the law because the numbers of people present at the event exceeded the expected numbers we specified in the documents. The law has an article that in such cases, the organizer is obliged to, roughly speaking, remove the excess participants, that is, take them somewhere else. But then there is a comma, and the law says: ‘in case of a threat to public safety.’ We are no threat to public safety. The excessive numbers were due to passers-by, who showed interest and came by to take newspapers. You never know who may get interested. And these officials, Gurin and Vikulov, provoked the situation, got people stirred up and so on. Which means in fact it were they, in my opinion, who acted as provocateurs. They tried to file a report of an administrative offense in my name, but it all ended just with me writing an explanation,” the agency interlocutor said.

He added that the report of an administrative offense was destroyed by a police officer.

“I personally witnessed how the captain ripped the report apart,” Dmitry Filyaev explained.

In his turn, Viktor Gvozdev, first deputy head of Penza administration, twitted that the Communist Party picket was held with violations.

“The picket conducted by Penza Communists near the city administration was held with violations,” he wrote.

As PenzaNews agency reported earlier, there were over 40 people participating in the picket for the rights and interests of the gardeners near Penza city administration. Among them were activists of the Communist Party city committee and representatives of the regional public organization “Children of War.”

The protesters carried the flags of the Communist Party and banners reading: “Save all suburban buses,” “Governor talks potatoes, gives no transport,” “Friday is the dacha day,” “We demand cheap dacha commutes four days a week,” and others.