Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of Bashkortostan Dmitry Chuvilin, who was arrested on the case of participation in a terrorist community, said that the security forces beat him on the way to an off-site court session. A copy of his letter is available to The Insider.
On March 7, Chuvilin and other defendants in the “Marxist circle” case were finally charged. According to Chuvilin, they were taken to the field meeting by special forces "with obviously sadistic inclinations." He said in a letter that they were pushed into the paddy wagon with kicks, their hands were handcuffed when they were indignant at this. One of the commandos hit Chuvilin hard under the eye, so that he had a hematoma and abrasions, and a headache began. “I was upset that my mother and nephew saw me in this form,” wrote Chuvilin.
Members of the "Marxist circle" are accused of organizing a terrorist community with the aim of forcibly changing the constitutional order of Russia. Deputy Dmitry Chuvilin, otolaryngologist of the City Clinical Hospital 21 Alexei Dmitriev, pensioner Yuri Efimov, ex-candidates for State Duma deputies Pavel Matisov and Rinat Burkeev were arrested at the end of March 2022.
Matisov is accused of creating a terrorist community (part 1 of article 205.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the others are accused of participating in it (part 2 of article 205.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Yuri Yefimov and Aleksey Dmitriev are also accused of public calls for terrorist activities, public justification of terrorism or its propaganda on the Internet (part 2 of article 205.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
According to investigators, the "terrorist organization" operated in the republic from 2019 to 2022, its purpose was to prepare for a violent seizure of power and change the constitutional order of Russia.
The Marxist Circle was founded in 2016. The members of the circle gathered every week on Wednesdays at the Stalin Museum on Kuznetsova Street in Ufa. There they discussed left-wing literature, primarily the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.