Penza, 14 July 2017. PenzaNews. The press service of the CPRF regional committee reported the detention of two party activists, who handed over the opposition newspaper “Penzenskaya Iskra”  by the police in the village of Lopatino.

© PenzaNewsBuy the photo

A message, published on the official website of the regional committee, says that the incident happened the day before and one of the detainees is the first secretary of the Lopatino CPRF committee Igor Sobyanin who is well known to the village residents.

“During the distribution of the newspaper, a senior police lieutenant Dmitry Bantysh approached the party activists and required them to go to the police office for identification. Even though the communists had passports with them, they still had to go to the police office. […] One of the high-ranking area police officers explained to the communists that, in his opinion, communist newspapers can only be distributed with the area administration’s approval,” the press release says.

It also notes that after almost two hours spent in the police office the CPRF activists were allowed to go, not protocol was drawn up, the police officers did not even write down their passport details for “identification.”

“Penza communists are appalled by such actions of the authorities in the run-up to the election to the Legislative Assembly of the Penza region. It may be assumed that the law enforcement agencies were used by the local administration and this incident took place on the instruction of the head of the Lopatino area Rishat Altanbaev. The communists consider such behavior unacceptable. We have to pay close attention to this area and pledge that on the election day on September 10 non-resident observers will be sent here the first thing,” the message says.