Week-ending 10 September 2021
On 6 September 2021 a court in St. Petersburg sentenced artist Ilya Pershin to three years in a penal colony-settlement [a penitentiary in which convicts live in a prison close to a facility where they work]. Pershin was convicted of assaulting a police officer at a protest in support of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny on 31 January 2021. The incident happened as police dispersed the peaceful protest. Pershin maintains his innocence of the charge. He contends the police officer in question fell and hurt his knee while Pershin was running away.
Sources:
RFE/RL, 6 September 2021: A court in Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, has sentenced an artist who was attending a rally in January for jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny to three years in a colony-settlement.
The Moscow Times, 6 September 2021: A St. Petersburg court on Monday sentenced a Russian man to three years in a penal colony for hitting a police officer at a rally in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
