The European Court of Human Rights has informed my lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, that our complaint about my house arrest has been given priority and has been communicated.
The Russian government must now answer the ECHR’s questions, after which the case will be considered on its merits.
The rules under which a particular complaint is given priority for consideration are set out here.
We argued that the house arrest was clearly politically motivated and serves none of the purposes of the investigation (which ended long ago) or the court (which is not considering anything).
It is obvious that the house arrest was imposed entirely unlawfully in order to: - keep me from interfering with Sobyanin’s effort to secure a victory for the crooks from United Russia in the Moscow City Duma elections. That is exactly why I am sitting at home now instead of rushing off to meet voters and helping candidates’ campaign teams, as I should be; - make it harder to register and prevent the development of the Progress Party, the only party capable of competing with United Russia; - sabotage the work of the Anti-Corruption Foundation and stop its ongoing investigations; - avoid damaging publications and make it easier to block resources.
It seems to me that these aims are obvious to any impartial person; presumably they are obvious to the ECHR as well, which is why the complaint has been given priority.
If you are interested, you can read the court’s summary of the facts and its questions to the Russian government (in English):
Unfortunately, priority status does not mean that the case will be heard in the coming weeks or even—alas—months; only the deadline for answering the questions has been set, and it is September 15. Still, we hope for the best. Though with our ~~Mad Printer~~ Duma (a sarcastic nickname for the Russian parliament, referring to its rapid passage of repressive laws), I would not be surprised if by then Russia withdraws from the jurisdiction of the ECHR in protest against the decline of moral values in Europe.
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