Week-ending 7 August 2020
On Friday, 7 August 2020, RFE/RL reported, citing the Apology Of Protest rights group, that in Perm’s Lenin district court prosecutors have called for Aleksandr Shabarchin to be sentenced to three years in a prison colony, and two other defendants to be given terms in prison colonies of two years and 18 months, for putting up an effigy of President Putin in Perm city centre in November 2018. On the effigy of Putin the protesters hung a sign that read (in Russian) ‘Liar. War Criminal. Pynya V.V’ [Pynya is a nickname for Putin]. The three were charged with hooliganism with prior conspiracy (Article 213, Part 2, of the Russian Criminal Code). The two other activists involved in the event are Aleksandr Kotov, for whom the prosecutor asked for a two-year sentence) and Daniil Vasiliev (for whom the prosecutor asked for 18 months). The trial had begun on 28 May 2020. The prosecutor alleges that the three activists disrupted social order by actions motivated by political, ideological, and social hatred.
