Dmitri Soloviev

From The Other Russia: A Russian blogger accused of inciting hatred against the police has been cleared of all charges, reports Grani.ru.

Dmitri Soloviev, a blogger and activist of the Oborona opposition movement, was notified on Monday of the December 31 decision. According to the document sent to the blogger, two groups of investigators found no evidence that any crime had actually been committed.

Soloviev had been charged in August 2008 with inciting hatred against police and federal security agents with a series of posts on LiveJournal.

Investigators had initially claimed that the five posts “instigated social strife” due to their content regarding the police.

The posts, under Soloviev’s username dimon77, included phrases accusing federal security agents of killing Russian children and assertions that the police would not succeed in breaking up the Oborona movement.

Advocates for the blogger maintained that the majority of the posts included material previously published elsewhere on the internet, and, furthermore, represented legitimate criticisms of specific actions of law enforcement officers.

As part of the investigation, Soloviev’s computer and notebook had both been confiscated, preventing him from completing his graduate dissertation.

Oborona leader Oleg Kozlovsky said that the decision to drop the case was “unprecedented in recent Russian history.” He added, however, that the case was very much an exception, as Soloviev’s case was only one of many similar, high-profile lawsuits against Russian bloggers.