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The original was posted on /r/worldnews by /u/Artbytimsmith on 2023-11-17 16:23:11.
Russian artist who protested Ukraine war gets 7 years in prison in latest crackdown on free speech
Submitted 2 years ago by bot@lemmit.online [bot] to worldnews@lemmit.online
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 2 years ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A Russian court on Thursday convicted an artist and musician for swapping supermarket price tags with antiwar messages, sentencing her to seven years in prison in one of the highest-profile cases involving the recent crackdown on free speech.
Sasha Skochilenko was arrested in her native St. Petersburg in April 2022 and charged with spreading false information about the military after replacing price tags with ones that decried Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The legislation has been used in a widespread crackdown on opposition politicians, human rights activists and ordinary citizens critical of the Kremlin, with many receiving lengthy prison terms.
Russian independent news site Mediazona quoted Skochilenko as saying in her final statement in court Thursday that the case against her was “weird and ridiculous” — so much so that officials in the facility where she is detained “open their eyes widely and exclaim: ‘Is this really what people are being imprisoned for now?’”
But she has struggled while in custody due to health problems, including a congenital heart defect, bipolar disorder and celiac disease, requiring a gluten-free diet, her lawyers and her partner have said.
Similar sentences were handed to Russians convicted in absentia, like cookbook author Veronika Belotserkovskaya or TV journalist and former lawmaker Alexander Nevzorov and several others.
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