The head of the Human Rights Council said that the court refused to transfer Bayazitova under house arrest

Moscow, December 27 – Valery Fadeev, Chair of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, said that while it is not possible to achieve the transfer of journalist Alexandra Bayazitova under house arrest, this situation shows the problem of humanizing the field.

The Kuzminsky Court in Moscow extended on Monday, until February 7, 2023, the detention of Bayazitova, who is accused of extorting money from Promsvyazbank’s chief manager Alexander Ushakov.

“So far, we cannot achieve her transfer to house arrest. This is a problem of humanizing the field,” Fadeev told reporters, adding that the issue of these detainees was raised in a meeting with the president and found understanding.

The head of the Human Rights Council also said that Bayazitova will visit her on December 30, a member of the Human Rights Council, the secretary of the Moscow Special Military Commission, Alexei Melnikov, and will check the conditions of her detention.

The investigation accused Alexandra Bayazitova, Olga Arkharov and Inna Churilova of extorting large sums of money for the so-called “blocks” in Telegram channels – that is, the absence of negative information about certain individuals. The victim in the case is the top director of Promsvyazbank Alexander Ushakov, according to his statement initiated.

As Arharova’s lawyer Elena Fedolova told the News Agency, at the beginning of the year, a publication about Ushakov’s professional activities, including his criminal record, was published on Bayazitova’s telegram channel “Hellish grandmothers”.

In the spring of 2022, Ushakov personally wrote to Churilova’s chatbot, as admin of the Infernal Grandmas telegram channel, asking for it to make a positive post about him. Chorelova refused, and then Ushakov’s assistant tried to negotiate with her, but was refused. Already in June, the lawyer said, one of the assistants asked Churelova to put a “ban” on mentioning Ushakov in “Infernal Grandmothers”.

Churilova agreed with Bayazitova the cost of this service – 420 thousand rubles for the first month, the money was transferred to the card and divided equally. According to the terms of the agreement, the “grandmothers of hell” were not supposed to publish information about Ushakov – neither negative nor positive. Arkharov entered into a dialogue about this block only at the stage of extending this service and offered to do it with a small discount – for 1.2 million rubles for three months.

Georgy Ivanov, a member of the Moscow Board of Directors, stated earlier that Baizitova did not consider herself guilty, while Arkharov and Churilova admitted guilt to one degree or another. However, Fedulova stressed that “in the testimonies of Churilova and Arkharova there is no admission of guilt by them, there are specifically detailed and consistent testimonies about the actual circumstances of the case.”

Lawyer Elena Fedulova has repeatedly stated in court that the “block” installation is nothing more than a contract for the provision of services within the framework of civil law relations.