Performance Artist Pavlensky Convicted In Moscow For Pro-Ukraine Protest
By RFE/RL's Russian Service
A court in Moscow has convicted performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky on charges of vandalism for a pro-Ukraine protest and has sentenced him to 16 months of "freedom limitation," which is similar to a suspended sentence with parole limitations.
However, the court also ruled that Pavlensky's sentence will not be carried out because the statute of limitations in the case had expired.
The charges were filed in connection with a February 2014 performance by Pavlensky in St. Petersburg, where he burned tires to express support for pro-EU demonstrators in Kyiv whose protests led to the ouster of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Pavlensky still faces trial in another case over his actions in November when he poured gasoline on the doors of Federal Security Service headquarters in Moscow and lit the doors on fire.
Pavlensky has stage a series of political protest performances that have included nailing his scrotum to Red Square and cutting off part of his ear while standing atop a psychiatric clinic.
He says his performances draw attention to the indifference of many Russians to widespread FSB control.
In today's Daily Vertical, Brian Whitmore says the contempt and callousness with which the Kremlin is treating the anniversary of the 1944 deportation of Crimea's Tatars may be stunning -- but it's hardly surprising. "It is, after all, in line with the way Vladimir Putin's regime treats all shameful episodes from the Soviet past -- be it the Great Terror, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, or the Ukrainian famine."
