Police responded this way to her solo pickets and attempts to protect historic buildings from demolition and redevelopment.
Natalia Shamina, an urban activist from Novosibirsk and head of the regional branch of the All-Russian Society for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments (VOOPIiK), was transferred to Psychiatric Clinical Hospital No. 1 after being taken to Moscow's Kitay-Gorod police station. The news was first reported by SOTAvision, citing fellow urban activist Igor Kochetkov.
According to Kochetkov, Shamina's colleagues consider her involuntary hospitalization unlawful and are preparing a formal complaint. A volunteer who tried to deliver essential items to the activist said hospital staff refused to accept the package, saying visitors would only be able to drop off deliveries on Monday.
🔶Shamina was detained on July 25 during a protest near the monument to Saints Cyril and Methodius in Moscow. She declared a hunger strike against a law that makes it easier to strip cultural heritage sites of their protected status. That same day, another VOOPIiK activist, Lyudmila Matrosova, who also opposes the bill, staged a solo picket in Novosibirsk.
