TALLINN, Estonia — A Russian court docket on Friday ordered pretrial detention for a theater director and a playwright dealing with expenses of justifying terrorism, the most recent transfer in a relentless crackdown on dissent in Russia that spiked to unprecedented ranges for the reason that begin of the battle in Ukraine.
The Zamoskvoretsky District Court in Moscow jailed Zhenya Berkovich, a outstanding unbiased theater director, and Svetlana Petriychuk, a playwright, for 2 months pending investigation and trial. The two had been detained within the Russian capital on Thursday due to the play Petriychuk wrote and Berkovich staged, “Finist, the Brave Falcon.” Police additionally raided the residences of Berkovich’s dad and mom and grandmother in St. Petersburg.
The play, named after a Russian fairy story, depicts Russian girls who confronted prosecution after being lured into marriage and life in Syria by representatives of radical Islam.
The authorities have alleged that the play justifies terrorism, accusations that each Berkovich and Petriychuk have rejected, sustaining their innocence.
Berkovich’s lawyer Yulia, Tregubova, identified in court docket on Friday that the play was supported by the Russian Culture Ministry and gained the Golden Mask award, Russia’s most prestigious nationwide theater award. Petriychuk’s lawyer Sergei Badamshin instructed the court docket that in 2019, the play was learn to inmates of a girls’s jail in Siberia, and Russia’s state penitentiary service praised it on its web site.
Justifying terrorism is a legal offense in Russia, punishable by as much as seven years in jail.
The case in opposition to Berkovich and Petriychuk elicited outrage in Russia. An open letter in help of the 2 artists, began by the unbiased Novaya Gazeta newspaper, has been signed by greater than 3,400 individuals by Friday night. The play, the letter argued, “carries an absolutely clear anti-terrorist sentiment.”
Dozens of Russian actors, administrators and journalists additionally signed affidavits urging the court docket to launch Berkovich from custody pending investigation and trial.
Immediately after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin unleashed a sweeping marketing campaign of repression, unparalleled for the reason that Soviet period. It has successfully criminalized any criticism of the battle, with the authorities concentrating on not solely outstanding opposition figures who finally obtained draconian jail phrases, however anybody who spoke out in opposition to it, publicly or in any other case.
Pressure mounted on vital artists in Russia, too. Actors and administrators had been fired from state-run theaters, and musicians had been blacklisted from performing within the nation. Some had been slapped with the “foreign agent” label, which carries further authorities scrutiny and robust damaging connotations. Many left Russia.
Berkovich, who raises two adopted daughters, has refused to go away Russia and continued working along with her unbiased theater manufacturing in Moscow, referred to as Soso’s Daughters. Shortly after the beginning of the battle in Ukraine, she staged an anti-war picket and was jailed for 11 days.
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