2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012		2012 total
							Regions	Moscow/Moscow Region
Number of regions	35	46	47	43	50	60	60		60
Criminal prosecutions	15	18	10	9	30	117	42		42
Protests	14	10	13	87	405	730	300	228 (OVD-Info)	528
Number of protesters	200	30	150	2959	96000	400000	617000		617000
Arrested at protests	270	25	100	500	3160	4000	1292	3857 (OVD-Info)	5149
Murders	1	1	3	6	6	3	3		3
Attacks	18	18	17	21	41	45	27		27
Kidnappings	2	3	3	9	3	2	1		1
Searches	11	17	20	12	20	25	38		38

* This overview for 2012 uses statistics for Moscow and Moscow region taken from the OVD-Info report "Our Man In The Paddy Wagon: Political Arrests in Moscow in 2012". When calculating incidents Agora did not divide the data into that from Moscow and that from Russia's regions, but after the publication of the OVD-Info report and the separation of Moscow and Moscow region from the overall total of information gathered and systematised by Agora, the numbers effectively coincided. As there is no cause to question the accuracy of OVD-Info's calculation of the number of public protests, the decision has been taken to use the OVD-Info report data for Moscow and Moscow region. 

Trends and Key Cases 

Protests 

The number of public protests in 2012 is comparable to the number of such events that took place in 2011. The number of participants in protests has risen sharply, by approximately 200,000 people. While in 2011 the average number of participants in a protest was around 550, in 2012 this rose to 1200. It should be noted that in 2011 the main attendance at public events centred on the two December protests in Moscow at Sakharov Prospect and Bolotnaya Square (10 and 24 December) which attracted many thousands of participants. Until these events the average attendance at protests was significantly lower. It is worth taking into account that in 2012 the bulk of protesters took part in protests in Moscow, where OVD-Info registered over 200 protests. Overall across all regions the number of public demonstrations was greater, although the number of people arrested during them was three times smaller, as the numbers at these protests were not as high as in Moscow.

Throughout virtually the entire country the authorities ceased using administrative detention as a form of punishment for participation in public protests. Since the amendments to the Administrative Offences Code came into force, raising monetary fines, the authorities' policy regarding protesters has been of an exclusively financial nature. Authorities across Russia have taken up the practice of levying substantial fines against protest participants of between 10,000 and 20,000 roubles, thus effectively introducing a separate tax for exercising one's constitutional right to freedom of assembly. Indeed, many jurists consider this practice unconstitutional, in relation to which in the last year at least 10 activists, including Aleksei Navalny, have submitted appeals to the Constitutional Court. Detention has only continued to be used in isolated incidents concerning actions which could clearly be considered disobedience or disorderly conduct. 

The situation in Russia's regions differs, however, from one region to another. For example, in Chuvashia in 2012 there was a breakthrough in the judicial defence of the organisers and participants of public demonstrations. More than 10 similar administrative cases were dismissed in the courts due to lack of evidence. On several occasions the courts ruled that local councils' refusal to agree to protest rallies was unlawful. In Tatarstan too, participants in public demonstrations can boast of a series of court victories regarding protests. However there have also been examples of setbacks. For example, in Nizhny Novgorod on 10 March 2012 the police heavy-handedly dispersed those taking part in a march; 85 people were arrested and taken to police stations. Along with St. Petersburg. Nizhny Novgorod can be added to the list of cities with noticeably more aggressive police actions against protesters. 

Aside from this, in 2012 regional authorities actively passed rules regulating the holding of public protests to limit the maximum numbers permissible at protests, possible venues and other aspects. We also observed an increase in the influence of regional and local authorities on policy regarding public demonstrations. Policy mainly depends on the region's distance from the federal centre, the extent of its autonomy, the absence of a tradition of mass protests and the presence of legal groups working for activists' legal defence. 

Violence (murders, attacks, kidnappings) 

With regard to incidents of violence against public figures, there are various lines of intersection to consider. 

• For the first time attacks connected to Islam have clearly been shown to be moving beyond the North Caucasus, where the level of this type of violence traditionally remains very high. It is a distinct phenomenon with political and religious motivations that are difficult to untangle. After the controversial deadly attacks on Muslim public figures in Moscow and Kazan, experts have begun to speak of the expansion of the Caucasus situation to other regions in Russia. 

• A new trend which began to take shape in 2011-2012 is that of radical Orthodox Christians. In the course of 2012 the group consisting of Dmitry Enteo and his supporters were reported to be involved in a dozen acts related to violence or threats of violence. Pussy Riot supporters, young people who openly promote feminist, liberal or anticlerical views, as well as LGBT activists, became the main targets of the group's attacks. 

At Khamovniki district court on the afternoon of 17 August 2012, when the verdict on the Pussy Riot case was being announced, several people approached Yulia Arkhipova and Ivan Chernyavksy, with one person in the group carrying water in a container that looked like a saucepan. They demanded that the young woman take off her t-shirt with a "Free Pussy Riot" slogan on it and an image of icons in masks. The Orthodox activists stated that Arkhipova's t-shirt was offensive to them, that no one had the right to wear clothes like that and that they were going to pour water over her and much worse besides. The young people maintained that they were righteously fighting against "blasphemers". After the woman refused to take off her t-shirt (the weather was warm that day and the t-shirt was Arkhipova's only piece of outer clothing), the man with the saucepan tried to douse her and Chernyavsky with water. One of the Orthodox activists (the victim subsequently recognised him as Dmitry Tsorionov), in her words, grabbed her arms and began to shout: "Repent!" They then told Arkhipova that next time it would be paint and not water. The young woman's friends brought her to police officers and told them about what had happened and the threats; however, the police took no steps to deal with the problem and let the young man go. 

On 18 August in a Moscow café a confrontation occurred involving Dmitry Tsorionov, Andrei Kaplin and several unidentified individuals. They went up to Denis Bochkarev and demanded that he take off his t-shirt reading "Mother of God, rid us of Putin." After he refused, the Orthodox activists called the police and summoned the café's manager. For over forty minutes Tsorionov and his friends demanded that Bochkarev take off his t-shirt, arguing that the slogan was offensive to Orthodox Christians and incited "religious hatred." Human rights defenders have written that certain members of the group suggested to Bochkarev that they "take this [dispute] outside", implying the intended use of physical violence against him. The police officers on the scene took all those involved in the confrontation to Dorogomilovo Police Station, where the two sides gave statements on the crime. 

On 27 August information was received about an attack on Aleksei Myslivets by unknown assailants at Paveletsky Station. On the platform for the Aeroexpress train to Domodedovo Airport, one of the attackers (who was later established as Dmitry Tsorionov) tore off Myslivets's t-shirt showing the "Free Pussy Riot" slogan and masked icon and ripped it up. According to the victim, after this one of the attackers started to bless himself and speak while holding the ripped t-shirt in his hands: "Blessed Rus, protect the Orthodox faith... It will be like this with every 'blasphemer'..." Myslivets submitted a statement regarding the disorderly actions and clear theft of his property on 30 August to the transport police at Paveletsky Station. 

On 29 August Dmitry Tsorionov arrived at the Tochka G museum on New Arbat with a group of young men in order to remove an aggressive advertisement and also, in his words, to speak to the museum's employees about chastity, marriage and God's intentions. The museum's employees mentioned that the Orthodox activists behaved extremely aggressively and frightened the museum workers. 

On the whole, the results for 2012 show that attacks by radical Orthodox Christians have a clear geographical link to Moscow. In other regions there have been no recorded incidents of violence or threats of violence on the part of ultra-Orthodox activists.

• Yet another trend is violence related to opposition between neo-Nazis and anti-fascists. In Samara on 9 February 2012, 20-year-old anti-fascist and activist with the organization "For Honest Elections" Nikita Kalin was brutally murdered (his body was literally battered in the attack). As a result, a man was sentenced to nine years in prison, although his membership of a neo-Nazi group was not taken into consideration by the court. After the trial the victim's friends continued to doubt the convicted man's involvement in the murder, as well as the number of attackers. In June 2012 neo-Nazis were recorded as attacking LGBT activists in St. Petersburg. Overall it is worth pointing out the tendency towards a decreasing number of violent crimes between neo-Nazi and anti-fascist groups. 

As regards high-profile crimes by neo-Nazis of recent years, 2012 saw a breakthrough in the investigation of these cases. In the autumn the investigation into the high-profile murders of anti-fascists, in particular of Ivan Khutorsky and Ilya Dzhaparidze, intensified. The cases are being led by the central office of Russia's Investigative Committee, which previously investigated the murder of Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova. At the same time a major effort is being made in the investigation of criminal cases involving anti-fascists who have been charged with violence against neo-Nazis based on ideological hatred and enmity. Key examples include the Antifa RASH case in Nizhny Novgorod which effectively fell apart in court, and the case of Aleksei Olesinov and Aleksei Sutugi in Moscow who were held in custody for almost a year despite direct evidence that they were not involved in the crime with which they were charged, as well as a whole series of less well-known criminal cases in the regions.

• The final group of crimes comprises incidents of violence where the authorities' representatives had a clear stake in the event. In particular, in 2012 both Nikolai Nikolaev from Nizhny Novgorod and Filipp Kostenko from St. Petersburg asserted that they were attacked by officers from Centres for Combating Extremism ("Centre E"). 

Conversely, in 2012 pro-government activists reported incidents of violence on several occasions. In one incident concerning the man-handling of a female Young Guard United Russia activist in Ulyanovskoe, the case resulted in a guilty verdict for Sergei Udaltsov. On another occasion an Orthodox activist reported being beaten. However, in both cases the veracity of the evidence given about the crimes was doubted by the general public.

In terms of investigations of the most high-profile crimes, the most significant was the trial in the Anna Politkovskaya murder case. The guilty plea and subsequent sentence handed down to a former Moscow police officer removed all doubts as to the involvement of state bodies in the assassination of the Novaya Gazeta columnist.

Criminal Prosecution. Searches

Criminal prosecution of activists in 2012 can be clearly divided into two periods: before and after the inauguration of Vladimir Putin. The first period was characterised by a single prominent criminal case, which to a large extent provided a backdrop for the entire year. This was the case of Pussy Riot and three of its members: Maria Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samutsevich. The women were arrested in March 2012. On 17 August Khamovniki district court sentenced Alekhina, Tolokonnikova and Samutsevich to two years in a penal colony. On 10 October 2012 the sentence was left unchanged for Alekhina and Tolokonnikova after appeal, while Samutsevich's sentence was suspended. 

The Pussy Riot case gave rise to a powerful discussion of the role of the Russian Orthodox Church and its influence on the authorities, prompted a legislative initiative to tighten the criminal law concerning insulting the feelings of believers, and a statement from President Putin that witnessed a departure from the principles of a secular state, evidencing the Kremlin's unambiguous policy aimed at using the Russian Orthodox Church as a power base for its conservative domestic policies. 

After Putin's inauguration the number of criminal cases against activists began to grow exponentially through to the end of the calendar year. The March of Millions on 6 May 2012 served as a starting point. In the resulting ‘Bolotnaya case’ the number of people charged has been increasing right through until February 2013, and now numbers 20 individuals. For the first time Russia's Investigative Committee utilized a huge amount of human resources – over 150 investigators working on an overtly politically-motivated case. Before this, large-scale investigative groups were only formed after major natural disasters and other catastrophes. In 2012 the Investigative Committee was used by the Russian authorities for the first time ever to conduct mass criminal prosecutions in politically-motivated cases. The Bolotnaya case provided an opportunity for a huge number of searches to be carried out at the residences of civic activists. In essence, searches became the single form of pressure exerted on activists which rose in 2012, according to Agora's records, increasing more than threefold since 2006. As such, Agora wishes to highlight the constant increase in the number of searches relating to civic activists. This trend is confirmed by the court statistics for the number of rulings on conducting searches.

Beginning in June 2012, Aleksei Navalny, Sergei Udaltsov and several members of the opposition's Coordinating Committee (founded in the autumn) who are of a nationalist persuasion have been faced with criminal prosecution. State television has actively played along with law enforcement agencies in these cases by creating a corresponding backdrop to the Anatomy of a Protest documentaries.

The repression of civic activists at the federal level could not but be reflected in pressure at the regional level. Consequently, in its 2012 report Human Rights Watch named Krasnodar Region as a centre of human rights violations in Russia. It should be noted that the Kuban has always remained one of the regions with the highest level of prosecution of civic activists. Here we can make separate mention of the criminal cases against ecologists Suren Gazaryan and Evgeny Vitishko. 

Meanwhile, with the change in governor from Gromov to Shoigu, the situation surrounding the criminal prosecution of activists in the Moscow region (the region immediately outside the capital) has somewhat stabilised. 

Another significant point related to criminal prosecutions is that of political emigration. While activists may have been leaving the country "quietly" until 2012, last year saw it become a distinct public trend, especially after what happened to Leonid Razvozzhaev, who was brought back to Russia from Ukraine by Russian security service officers. We can also highlight the story of Alexander Dolmatov which ended tragically in January 2013. 

We make separate mention of the enduring yet relatively low-level practice of using psychiatric committal against civic activists, such as Altai opposition journalist Ruslana Makarova and Mari El activist Evgenia Pirogova in 2012, in both cases for criticizing their regional leaders. Investigators also attempted to send Maksim Efimov, the author of the blog post "Karelia is tired of priests", to a psychiatric hospital. However, it must be said that this practice is not in any way applied on a large scale. Nevertheless, it remains among the arsenal of methods used, and has the potential to grow. 

The data on which this report is based was obtained from public sources and from people who contacted Agora for assistance.