MOSCOW, March 21 (RAPSI) – Ex-student of the Baltic Federal University in Russia’s Kaliningrad Oleg Alekseyev has filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights over his expulsion for communication with journalists, his lawyer Damir Gainutdinov has told RAPSI.

The third-year law faculty student Alekseyev was expelled in 2017 after he told local journalists that the university’s administration compelled students to decline to participate in an anti-corruption act of protest, the attorney said.

Alekseyev believes that his right to freedom of expression (Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights) was violated.

In the summer of 2017, Alekseyev proceeded with an anti-corruption rally application, but local authorities rejected it.

Later, the university’s administration during a meeting with Alekseyev demanded that he withdrew from organizing the rally. The student recorded the conversation and gave the audio to journalists. After the publication was released Alekseyev was sent down from the university.

Local courts refused to declare his expulsion illegal.