On the 16th of July 22 year old antifascist Aleksei Bychin was arrested in St. Petersburg. He is facing charges according to statute 111, part 1 of Russian criminal codex (consciously causing grievous bodily harm). 18th of July he was put to remand prison.

On the night 12-13 of June a group of around 20 antifascist punks was hanging around in the city. Aleksei and his girlfriend were behind the main group. A group of two neonazi skinheads passed by them throwing "sieg heil"-greetings. Aleksei understood that Nazis were about to attack him, as one of them was carrying a broken bottle. A fight started, and Aleksei was forced to use knife against one of the attackers. He wounded one of the nazis with a knife, and fascists ran away. Eventually it become known that one of the nazis was a police officer.

In June and July St. Petersburg police was investing the case, using a wide variety of illegal means. A number of punks from St. Petersburg and surrounding areas were taken to "discussions" which lasted for hours, no protocols were made during these "discussions". People were threatened, illegally detained after concerts, contents of mobile phones were confiscated, police even set up false accounts in popular Russian social networking site vkontakte.ru (a facebook copycat) in order to gather information.

Early in the morning on the 16th of July in St. Petersburg one antifascist punk was arrested while leaving his home. He was taken to 76th police station in Mytinskaya street 3, and chained to a battery for several hours. After this, he was forced to call Aleksei Bychin and propose him to meet in the center of the city. At this meeting Aleksei was arrested and taken to 76th police station. Police refused food and water, which friends of Aleksei carried to police station. It is also worth of noticing that during interrogation of one of the witnesses of the events in 76th police station on the 17th of July policemen were drunk, announced that they were supporting National-Socialism and were throwing “sieg heil”-greetings. Flat of Aleksei and his girlfriend were searched as well.

We, friends and comrades of Aleksei are certain, that in the fight during on the night 12-13 of June he was acting out of self-defence. We support all forms of resistance against neonazism, direct action and physical confrontation included. It is obvious for us, that the police forces are full of people with nationalist attidudes and while these tendencies are not outrooted we can not trust a single word of government officials promoting tolerance and fighting xenophobia.

Antifascist information group
e-mail: antifa_spb (at) riseup.net
phone: +79817452556

Original text in Russian:
http://piter.indymedia.ru/node/5055
http://ru.indymedia.org/newswire/display/20741/index.php