A Russian military court sentenced 10th grader, 17-year-old Lyubov Lizunova to 3.5 years in prison. Nineteen-year-old Alexandr Sněžkov was given six years. Both were sentenced for the sign “Death to the regime” that they painted on the outskirts of the Siberian city of Chita, BBC News reported on its Russian-language website, citing human rights defenders who watched the trial.
The prosecutor demanded seven years for Sněžkov and five years for Lizunová in a penal colony for the fact that, in addition to the mentioned inscription, they also reported on social networks about “direct anti-war actions”, in particular about setting fire to military administrations.
Lizunov was transferred from house arrest to pretrial detention two weeks ago because she once came home two hours late. She thus became the first underage schoolgirl to be locked up in a detention center for anti-war protests.
Lizunov and Sněžkov were arrested by agents of the FSB secret service, the successor to the Soviet secret police KGB, the year before last October, right at the moment when they were painting the sign “Death to the Regime” on the garages on the outskirts of Čita. When the agents asked them who painted the sign, Snezkov said he didn’t know – and considering the agents to be ordinary passers-by, he even exchanged a few insults with them before they pulled out their IDs.
They accused the couple of committing three crimes: inciting terrorism and extremism, as well as vandalism motivated by political grudge. Sněžkov was detained in January last year under the pretext of a possible escape from Russia.
According to the OVD-Info portal, which specializes in monitoring police interventions, more than 900 people in Russia face criminal charges for anti-war protests. Last year, Russian courts handed down seven times more verdicts based on “anti-war” clauses than a year earlier: 115 compared to 17.
Tags: Russian student serve years prison writing Death Regime
