Animal rights defender Irina Anikushina said that police officers asked her to come to the station after a picket demanding an investigation into the killing of a dog and then beat her. The Lapy Proch (“Keep Your Paws Off”) community reported her account.
Photo: Ministerstvo Sobachyikh Del (“Ministry of Dog Affairs”)
Anikushina held the picket on July 23 outside the Tula Oblast Investigative Committee building. According to her account, published on a Telegram channel run by Tula animal rights activists, she went to the police station voluntarily to answer some questions about the picket. However, officers demanded that she hand over her sign, then tried to take her phone, knocked her to the floor, and kicked her. They also twisted her arms as they tried to take her camera. The woman's screams inside the police station were captured on video, and an ambulance was called to the scene.
“After the beatings and abuse, the ambulance arriving, and a call to the Federal Security Service (FSB), everyone scattered. I managed to make my way downstairs to the first floor. They stole my sign. They tried to slip me some bogus report about some kind of crime scene examination <...>. My arm is killing me, something is cracking in my shoulder, and I'm covered in bruises. My leg is giving out too,” the woman wrote.
Anikushina has already filed a complaint with the Investigative Committee, but officials there refused to order a forensic medical examination. In August, she held another picket demanding an investigation into her alleged beating and the killing of the dog. Animal rights activists called on people to file complaints demanding that the police officers be investigated for abuse of authority.
In early July, a dog was killed in the village of Sergievsky in Tula Oblast. Its owner claims that a local police officer was responsible for its death. She repeatedly asked the police and the Investigative Committee to open a criminal case against the alleged killer, but her requests went unanswered. She still keeps the dog's body in a freezer so that it can be taken for examination. A similar case involved another Tula Oblast resident. Her dog was killed by a neighbor, and police agreed to take the body for an autopsy only after she staged a solo picket.
