👮‍♀️ The “Rabochaya Vlast'” (Workers Power) case

⏺On April 21, 2025, the pro-government publication RIA Novosti reported on the discovery of a certain “group of students with left-radical views” at St. Petersburg State University (SPbSU).

They reported that Artyom Pronko, a student at the university, had been charged with “violating the rules of holding a rally” over a March 24 installation on a monument to Count Uvarov under the administrative article on violating the rules of holding rallies.

The government media and police accused Pronko of membership in the Trotskyist student cell “Workers Power”, claiming that all members of the group were members.

Characteristically, they accused this group of “joining an international alliance with a management center in Great Britain,” calling them “pro-British supporters” acting allegedly in the context of deteriorating relations between Russia and Great Britain.

⏺On the same day, independent media reported that LETI student Stepan Timofeev was detained in the same case and a protocol was drawn up.

⏺A few weeks later, the case was further developed. On March 13 Primorsky District Court fined 26-year-old Alexei Sidorov, musician of the band Silver machine, 20 thousand rubles under the article on incitement to hatred or enmity (article 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation), pointing to his membership in the “Working Power” as one of the grounds for the sentence.

⏺ On May 15, searches were held in St. Petersburg at the homes of people allegedly connected with the left-radical group “Workers Power”: Harry Azaryan, Oleg Rubish, Irada Ibragimova, Denis Koval, Sergey Kadnikov and Kirill. The reason was a criminal case under the article on “calls to terrorism”, initiated against 23-year-old student from Kazakhstan Harry Azaryan.

According to the version of the IC, at internal meetings of the organization Azaryan allegedly called for “terrorist activity and mass murder.” Transcripts of the speeches, which allegedly included phrases about “class hatred” and ‘revolution’, were mentioned as “evidence”.

Leaflets and brochures (“Manifesto of the Workers' Power”) were seized from the defendants in the case, and interrogations were conducted. Human rights activists report about the beating of one of the detainees named Kirill. Some of the detainees were released with the status of witnesses - which, as the law enforcers warned, “can change quickly”.

⚡️Today by decision of the Krasnogvardeysky Court of St. Petersburg Harry Azaryan was placed in custody in SIZO-1 for 2 months, starting today.

According to “Workers Power” itself, the materials of the congress were downloaded from the account of one of its comrades before the shutdown, some of the documents were changed and falsified. Its representatives stated publicly that there were no illegal statements or appeals on their behalf.

Today, student self-organization, if it is not embedded in the official vertical and expresses class views, is automatically under suspicion. The persecution on political grounds, the attempt to intimidate the student left movement and break the young organizational culture is part of a general line to suppress any critical thinking in a militarized and reactionary environment.

We believe the case is politically motivated and the charges are baseless.

Freedom to Harry Azaryan and all the defendants in the case!