The greats of Russian rock, many of whom who rose to fame as glimmers of protest against the controlled political climate of the Soviet Union, offered their voices and influence to today’s political opposition in a packed concert on Sunday.

The RokUznik (Rock Prisoner) concert at Moscow’s Mir concert hall raised more than one million rubles ($31,000), all of which will go to paying the legal fees of the defendants in the ongoing Bolotnaya Case, Argumenti.ru reported.

Twelve men and women are standing trial for violence against police and participation in mass riots at Bolotnaya Ploshchad on the day of President Vladimir Putin‘s inauguration in May 2012.

Some of them have already spent over a year in jail awaiting charges.  everal other protesters have sought political asylum abroad for fear of prosecution.

“Despondency is a sin, we have to hang in there and get those guys out, because it is completely awful. And there are very many who aren’t in this auditorium today who share our opinion, absolutely,” Yuri Shevchuk, frontman of beloved rock group DDT, told the audience, Grani.ru reported.

Shevchuk, Andrei Makarevich of Mashina Vremeni (Time Machine), Yevgeny Khavtan of Bravo, Vezhlivy Otkaz (Polite Refusal) and Zorge, a recent instantiation of the group Tequilajazz, all played for the packed auditorium.

They were joined by up-and-coming rapper Noize MC and Moscow-based psychedelic rock group Kira Lao, representing the next generation of Russian musicians.

To ensure the festive ambience didn’t distract too much from the matter at hand, a short film by musician Sergei Popov related the story of the Bolotnaya Case before the performances.

In between acts, actor Mikhail Yefremov read out testimonies collected by the Commission for the Public Investigation of the Events of May 6, an organization of human rights activists, experts, and public figures that has collected more than 600 statements from witnesses of the protest who concluded that there were no mass riots that day.

The festival was organized by RosUznik, a non-profit organization devoted to funding the legal defense of those arrested for political protest.

An earlier version of this article stated that 30 Bolotnaya suspects had fled Russia to avoid prosecution. While several protesters who believed they could be prosecuted have gone to European countries seeking asylum, 28 is the number of people originally implicated in the Bolotnaya case.

The Moscow Times 

Lawyers for two Russian defendants in a high-profile case over a May 2012 opposition rally in Moscow that turned violent have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights over them being kept in custody while awaiting their ongoing trial, a defense lawyer told RAPSI news agency on Tuesday.

The two suspects, Alexei Polikhovich and Denis Lutskevich, are among 12 people accused of participating in “mass riots” after protesters clashed with police during the May 6 anti-Kremlin protest last year, a day before Vladimir Putin was sworn in for a third presidency. The protest on Bolotnaya Square descended into violence, which the protesters and the police each accuse the other of instigating. The trial of the defendants is now underway in the Moscow City Court.

Polikhovich and Lutskevich – who have been in detention ever since their arrests shortly after the incident – were taken into custody before a verdict has been delivered, which “breached their right to freedom until the trial,” their lawyer Dmitry Agranovsky told the legal news agency.

The defense team has appealed to the European Court (ECHR) to rule the detention unlawful and order Russia to pay 100,000 euros ($134,900) in damages to each of the defendants.

Earlier, seven other suspects in the same case submitted a complaint to the ECHR over the length of their detention and poor conditions while awaiting trial. The court approved those complaints for further consideration, combining them into one case last week and giving it priority status.

Another detained suspect in the case, Sergei Krivov, went on hunger strike Thursday, fellow defendant Maria Baronova, who is not in custody but is under oath not to leave the city, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. She said that Krivov was protesting over the way his trial was being handled by the court.

RIANovosti

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has combined and prioritized appeals lodged by seven Russians, accused of involvement in a rally that turned violent in downtown Moscow last May, against the conditions of their detention, their lawyer said Tuesday.

“The court sent a 22-page letter to the Russian government, delivering 26 questions to the Russian authorities relating to the investigation of the case and its consideration in the court,” Dmitry Agranovsky, the lawyer, told RAPSI without elaborating.

Agranovsky said that the suspects dispute the length of their detention and the conditions in which they are being held.

The ECHR prioritized appeals by Bolotnaya Square suspects Leonid Kovyazin in July and Vladimir Akimenkov and Yaroslav Belousov in August.

Russian media reports suggested that the new combined case has just added appeals by four other suspects to the three Bolotnaya Square appeals the ECHR is already considering, although no one from the ECHR was immediately available to confirm this.

Authorities say that 400 people were detained over a protest rally on Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square that ended in clashes between the protesters and the police on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s inauguration for his third presidential term in May 2012.

The rally’s participants and organizers have since been under criminal investigation in Russia over charges of violence against the police, and of taking part in and organizing riots.

Prominent Russian opposition figures Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev – two of the Bolotnaya Square suspects – have repeatedly denied charges that they took foreign funds to incite violence and destabilize Russia

Russia&India

Amentally ill Russian man held in pretrial detention for more than a year after attending an opposition rally has been barred from attending his mother’s funeral.

Mikhail Kosenko and 26 others are being tried for allegedly instigating “mass disorders” and assaulting police officials during an antigovernment protest in May 2012 that turned violent.

Some of them face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

A Moscow court on September 9 rejected Kosenko‘s request to be present at his mother’s funeral, deepening outrage over the so-called Bolotnaya case — named after the Moscow square where the defendants were detained.

In Russia, those in pretrial detention do not have the right to temporary release in order to attend funerals.

Kosenko had nonetheless filed an appeal and hoped until the last minute that he would be granted permission to pay his last respects to his mother, who was buried on September 10.

His lawyer, Valery Shukhardin, insists that Russian legislation violates international norms by preventing detainees from bidding their final farewell to deceased relatives.

“Only people who have been convicted and are serving their sentence have this right,” he says. “Our laws allow criminals to do so but not innocent people in pretrial detention. In this regard, our legislation violates the defendant’s right to a private life — a right enshrined in Article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.”

Psychiatric Disorder

The high-profile case has sparked international outrage and has come to symbolize the Kremlin’s ruthless crackdown on political dissent since Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin last year for a third presidential term after a four-year stint as prime minister.

About 400 people were detained at the May 6, 2012 protest on Bolotnaya Square, where people had turned up en masse to denounce Putin’s 12-year rule.

Kosenko’s plight has drawn particular sympathy.

The 38-year-old, who suffers from a psychiatric disorder after a trauma sustained during his military service, is currently being held in the psychiatric section of a pretrial detention center.

Prosecutors have sought to have him forcibly interned in a psychiatric hospital despite the fact that he successfully underwent outpatient treatment for a decade before his arrest.

According to Shukhardin, Kosenko is not receiving proper medical treatment in detention.

Life behind bars, he says, has taken a serious toll on his health.

“As a person with a disability, his level of suffering is much higher than that of ordinary, healthy inmates,” he says. “His detention is not at all helping his health.”

Kosenko strongly denies assaulting police officers at the rally – a claim backed by a police officer hurt in the clashes who told the court that he did not recognize the detainee.

Footage allegedly incriminating Kosenko shows a group of people clashing with police while he stands by.

WATCH: Protesters and police clash in Moscow on May 6, 2012

Several months before passing away from an undisclosed illness, Kosenko’s mother Nina had recorded a video making an emotional plea for his release.

“I could not think about him without tears, tears kept streaming and streaming,” she said. “Still now, emotions overwhelm me. I am worried about him. I just want him to come home.”

RFERL