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Russian poets get jail sentences for anti-war poetry reading
By Laura Gozzi
BBC News
<
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67833649>
Two Russian poets have been handed long jail sentences for taking part
in a reading of anti-war poems in Moscow.
A Moscow court gave Artyom Kamardin seven years and Yegor Shtovba five
and a half years for "inciting hatred" against Russian troops and
making "appeals against state security".
Both had pleaded not guilty.
The pair are the latest to be sentenced under what rights groups have
condemned as an unprecedented crackdown on dissent in Russia.
A third poet who had taken part in the poetry reading, Nikolai
Dayneko, was given a four-year sentence earlier this year after
pleading guilty and co-operating with the investigation.
On 25 September 2022, Kamardin, 33, recited a poem at the Mayakovsky
Readings - a poetry event that has attracted dissidents and activists
to Triumfalnaya Square - formerly Mayakovsky Square - in central
Moscow since the 1950s.
Shtovba, who is 23, also attended the event, held following Russian
President Vladimir Putin's announcement that month of a "partial
mobilisation" campaign for the war in Ukraine.
Kamardin read out a poem which crudely criticised Russian imperialism
in southern Ukraine and included the words "Glory to the Kievan Rus" -
a 9th-Century Slavonic state that had Kyiv as its capital.
At the time of his arrest, his wife Alexandra Popova told the BBC that
police had stormed the couple's flat the following day.
"They dragged me across the floor by my hair and started supergluing
stickers to my face. They threatened to glue my mouth up," Ms Popova
said.
She said that she heard her husband being beaten in another room, and
that police "were talking about raping him".
Alexandra PopovaBBC
[The police] filmed everything they did to Artyom. They grabbed me by
the hair and showed me a photo of him naked and beaten up, covered in
blood
Alexandra Popova
Artyom Kamardin's wife
Kamardin's lawyer said police had raped his client with a dumbbell
before forcing him to record an apology video.
Ahead of the sentencing on Thursday, the two defendants made
statements to the court.
Shtovba, 23, said the Mayakovsky Readings last year had been the first
he had ever attended. He had not read a poem but had merely applauded
the performances, he said, adding there was no evidence to prove he
was guilty of inciting hatred against troops taking part in the
Ukraine war.
Kamardin asked the judge to consider giving him a suspended sentence.
He said judging someone for their opinions was an "all too common
practice in today's Russia" and predicted that he would be found
guilty "despite my complete innocence".
Supporters in the Moscow courtroom shouted "Shame!" as the sentences
were read out, witnesses said.
Mayakovsky Readings have been held intermittently since 1958. In the
1960s, people would gather around the statue of poet Vladimir
Mayakovsky and recite poems that were often critical of the Soviet
Union.
Many organisers were accused of anti-Soviet propaganda and sentenced
to several years in the gulags.
The group was revived in 2009 but suspended its activities in October
2022. The organisers said on Telegram that the ongoing "military
censorship and mobilisation" made it unsafe for participants to
continue gathering.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has overseen an unprecedented
crackdown on domestic opposition in parallel with the full-scale
invasion of Ukraine.
Last month Russian anti-war activist Sasha Skochilenko, 33, was
sentenced to seven years in a penal colony for replacing supermarket
pricing labels with anti-war messages.
Opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in
jail for charges linked to his criticism of the war in Ukraine, and
Moscow councillor Alexei Gorinov was imprisoned for seven years for
criticising the invasion during a city council meeting.
Scores of other critics of Mr Putin's rule have also ended up behind
bars, with a marked uptick following the start of Russia's full-scale
invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Source:
<
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67833649>
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web:
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog:
http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
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