A São Petersburg court sentenced a 19 -year -old to almost three years in a penal colony after she was accused of repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian army, including gluing a quote from a Ukrainian poet on a statue.
Darya Kozyreva was sentenced to two years and eight months, reported the joint press service of the São Petersburg courts in a statement on Friday (18).
Kozyreva was arrested on February 24, 2024, after pasted a verse of the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko in his monument in St. Petersburg, according to OVD-Info, an independent Russian human rights organization.
The verse of Shevchenko’s “My Testament” said, “Oh, bury me, so they get up / and break your heavy chains / and set aside with the blood of the tyrants you have conquered,” OVD-Info said.
A second process was opened against her in August 2024 after an interview with Free Europa Radio in which she called the Russian war in Ukraine “monstrous” and “criminal,” OVD-info said.
During one of her audiences, the teenager claimed that she had only recited a poem and glued a quote in Ukrainian, “nothing more,” said the court’s press service.
The antiguerra activist has had problems with the law, having been arrested in December 2022, while still attending high school for writing “killers, you bombed. Judas” in an installation dedicated to the dialogue of the Russian city of St. Petersburg with Mariupol, Ukraine, the Human Rights Group said.
She was then fined for “discredit” a year later and expelled from the university for a publication on a Russian social media platform discussing the “imperialist nature of war”, according to the memorial, one of the most respected human rights organizations in the country.
Describing Kozyreva as a political prisoner, the memorial condemned the accusations against her as “absurd” in a statement last year, stating that they aimed to suppress the dissent.
Prosecutors were looking for a six -year sentence for Kozyreva, the Russian Independent Media channel Sota Vision from the court said. Reuters video images showed Kozyreva smiling and waving to supporters by leaving court.
Kozyreva’s lawyer told Reuters that they would probably resort.
Amnesty International Director for Russia, Natalia Zviagina, classified the verdict as “another frightening reminder of how far the Russian authorities will go to silence the peaceful opposition to their war in Ukraine.”
“Daria Kozyreva is being punished for quoting a classic of nineteenth -century Ukrainian poetry, for manifesting against an unfair war and refusing to remain silent. We demand the immediate and unconditional liberation of Daria Kozyreva and all prisoners under the ‘war censorship laws,'” Zviagina said in a statement.
Russia has a history of attempts to repress antiguerra dissent among its younger generation. Last year, the CNN He reported that at least 35 minors have faced criminal accusations for political motivation in Russia since 2009, according to the OVD-info. Of these, 23 cases have started since Russia began its large -scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Currently, more than 1,500 people are trapped for political reasons in Russia, according to an OVD-info count, with Moscow’s repression of dissent intensifying since the beginning of the war. Since then until December 2024, at least 20,070 people have been detained by antigura opinions, and there were 9,369 cases of “army discredit” related to actions that included social media posts or use of clothes with Ukrainian flag symbols, according to OVD-info.
This content was originally published in Russia condemns young to nearly three years in prison for antiguerra protest on CNN Brazil.
Source: CNN Brasil
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