Daria Kozyreva used poetry and graffiti of the 19th century to protest the Russian war against Ukraine.
A Russian court pronounced a prison sentence of almost three years in Daria Kozyreva, a young activist who used poetry and the graffiti of the 19th century to protest against the war in Ukraine.
On Friday, a witness to the Reuters news agency said that Kozyreva, 19, had been found guilty of “discrediting” the Russian army several times after having presented a poster with lines of Ukrainian to a public square and gave an interview to Sever.relii, a Russian free radio service free.
She was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison.
Friday, Kozyreva pleaded not guilty, judging the case against its “large manufacture”, according to a transcript of the trial compiled by Medizona, an independent media.
“I have no guilt. My conscience is clear, ”she said, according to Mediazona’s transcription.
“Because the truth is never guilty.”
In December 2022, only 17, Kozyreva pulverized the words “Murderers, you bombed him. Judasses “, in black painting on a sculpture of two intertwined hearts, erected outside Saint Petersburg, the Hermitage museum which represents the links of the city with Maripol, a Ukrainian city largely stubborn on the ground during a seat of a year earlier.
At the beginning of 2024, after being sentenced to a fine of 30,000 rubles ($ 370) for having published on online Ukraine, Kozyreva was expelled from the medical faculty of the State University of Saint Petersburg.
A month later, on the occasion of the second anniversary of the war, she recorded a piece of paper containing a fragment of Taras Shevchenko verses, the father of modern Ukrainian literature, on a statue of him in a park in Saint Petersburg:
“Oh bury me, then lift yourself / and break your heavy chains / and water with the blood of tyrants / freedom you have won.”
Kozyreva was quickly arrested and held in prior detention for almost a year, until she was released in February for residential assignment.
‘Punished for quoting poetry’
Natalia Zvianagina, director of Amnesty International Russia, said the verdict on Friday “is another scary reminder of the measure in which the Russian authorities will silence the peaceful opposition to their war in Ukraine”.
“Daria Kozyreva is punished for quoting a classic of Ukrainian poetry from the 19th century, for having denounced an unjust war and for having refused to remain silent”, she said in a declaration.
“We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Daria Kozyreva and everyone imprisoned under” laws on war censorship “.”
Kozyreva is currently one of the 234 people imprisoned in Russia for their anti-war position.
Arrests concerning the charges of espionage and collection of sensitive data has also become increasingly frequent in Russia since it began its large -scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Evan Gershkovich, journalist of the Wall Street Journal, was arrested last year, suspected of having tried to obtain military secrets and accused of espionage, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years, and is currently awaiting trial. The United States has appointed him “wrongly detained” and seeks his release.
Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was arrested last October and awaits a trial so as not to register as a foreign agent. “She too is held in detention while waiting for the trial.
