Week-ending 14 May 2021
On Tuesday 11 May 2021 a Moscow court sentenced Olga Misik to two and a half years of ‘restricted liberty.’ She has effectively been placed under a curfew for that period, banned from leaving home between 10 pm and 6 am. Olga Misik is a young activist who became a symbol of aspirations for democracy when she read the Constitution to riot officers at a protest in July 2019. Her brave speech at her trial gained a wide readership and can be read in translation on our website.
The Moscow Times, 11 May 2021: Russia has sentenced a prominent young activist to over two years of home confinement on vandalism charges amid the country’s widening crackdown on dissent, the Mediazona news website reported Tuesday. Olga Misik, 19, became a symbol of Russia’s pro-democracy movement after she sat and read the Constitution to a line of armored riot officers at a July 2019 protest against the barring of allies of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny from Moscow city council elections. She and two friends were charged with vandalizing a government building after they hung a banner in support of political prisoners and splashed red paint on a security booth outside the Prosecutor General’s Office building in August 2020. Under the verdict, Misik will be banned from leaving her home between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. for two years and two months. Prosecutors had requested a sentence of two years of “restricted liberty” for Misik. Her friends and fellow defendants Ivan Vorobyevsky and Igor Basharimov have been sentenced to one year and nine months of “restricted liberty” with a curfew from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.
‘Olga Misik’s speech in court: “You are not passing this judgment on me – you are passing it on yourself.”,’ Rights in Russia, 2 May 2021
