On 5/5 a Tver court convicted blogger Andrei Bubeev of inciting extremism and separatism, sentencing him to 2 years in jail. On 13/5 three top editors left RBC after the police launched a criminal case into the media holding. On 19/5 ex-RBC chief editor Elizaveta Osetinskaya said she was fired because of coverage of the Panama Papers. On 16/5 investigators raided the offices of Listok, an Altai region newspaper, on suspicion of extremism. On 18/5 Petr Pavlensky said police officers escorting him to court severely assaulted him. On 19/5 a court convicted Pavlensky on charges of vandalism for a pro-Ukraine protest and sentenced him to 16 months’ ‘freedom limitation.’ On 24/5 chief editor of Ekho Moskvy Aleksei Venediktov said journalist Evgeniya Albats had been pulled off air due to censorship by station management. On 31/5 Venediktov said police will interrogate him after the station’s website published a blog by Aleksei Navalny. On 30/5 a court in Dagestan convicted Murad Shuaibov and Isa Abdurakhmanov of the 2009 murder of newspaper editor Malik Akhmedilov. On 31/5 Taganrog resident Elizaveta Tsvetkova was sentenced to one year’s corrective labour for distributing leaflets criticizing the police.

Right of assembly 

On 1/5 police arrested nearly 20 LGBTI activists at a St. Petersburg May Day parade. On 6/5 police detained 8 protestors on Bolotnaya Square marking the 4th anniversary of the 2012 protest. On 17/5 Roman Roslovtsev was jailed for 20 days for walking on Red Square in a Putin mask. On 18/5 Crimean Tatars were prevented holding rallies to mark the 72nd anniversary of the 1944 deportation.

Right of association 

On 11/5 the Ministry of Justice in its annual report to the State Duma said criticizing the country’s ‘foreign agent’ law is ‘political activity’. On 17/5 Russian and international rights activists called for an end to moves to prosecute activist Valentina Cherevatenko. On 25/5 the Russian Parliament adopted amendments to the 'foreign agent' law that lacked promised improvements. On 26/5 Golos said NTV journalists surreptitiously obtained information about its employees’ movements from law enforcement agencies.

Activists 

Overnight on 8-9/5 authorities detained two activists at the improvised memorial to Boris Nemtsov at the place he was gunned down, and removed the memorial. On 12/5 activist Dmitry Vorobevsky, forcibly admitted to a psychiatric clinic in Voronezh on 6/5, was freed by decision of a local court. On 13/5 Aleksei Navalny said he had been stopped by police to check for links to the Islamic State in Krasnodar region. On 17/5 Navalny and members of his Anti-Corruption Foundation were physically attacked at Anapa airport in Krasnodar. On 25/5 the apartment of Anastasia Zotova, wife of opposition activist Ildar Dadin, was burgled and trashed. On 26/5 activist Dmitry Nekrasov fled Russia for Latvia.

North Caucasus 

On 2/5 Ramazan Dzhalaldinov, from Chechnya, who lodged a complaint with Prosecutor General Yury Chaika against Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov for publicly insulting him, was reported missing. After his home was burned to the ground (12-13/5) and police surrounded his village (14/5),on 30/5 Dzhalaldinov retracted his criticism and apologized to Kadyrov. On 4/5 authorities said they killed three militants in Kizilyurt, Dagestan. On 14/5 in Dagestan two police officers and four rebels were killed in Derbent.

Ukraine 

On 12/5 authorities detained four Crimean Tatars on suspicion of being members of Hizb ut-Tahrir. On 19/5 the Supreme Court of Chechnya found Ukrainian citizens Mykola Karpiuk and Stanislav Klykh guilty of fighting alongside Chechen separatists in the 1990s. On 25/5 Nadiya Savchenko was released in a prisoner swap with Ukraine. On 25/5 Ervin Ibragimov, a Crimean delegate to the World Congress of Crimean Tatars, was suspected abducted from near his home. On 31/5 journalist Lilia Budzhurova said she received a formal warning for extremism regarding an appeal to support the children of detainees in Crimea.