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Pussy Riot on stage (symbolic image)
Photo: Paul Glaser / picture alliance / dpa
A Russian court has sentenced Pussy Riot member Lyusya Shtein to six years in prison in absentia for criticizing the war on social media. According to the prison's press service, the 27-year-old former Moscow city councilor was found guilty of spreading slander in a post on Platform X in March 2022.
She accused Russian soldiers who were captured by Ukraine of "bombing foreign cities and killing people," as the independent media "Mediazona" reported.
According to the online civil rights platform OVD-Info, more than 19,800 people have been arrested in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine for speaking out against the war. Those found guilty of spreading “false information” about the Russian army could face up to ten years in prison.
Meanwhile, the Moscow court announced that Schtein would begin her detention as soon as she could be extradited to Russia. A few weeks after the invasion of Ukraine began, the activist fled her Moscow house arrest with her friend disguised as a food delivery employee - to Lithuania and finally to Iceland, which granted her citizenship in May 2023, as local media reported.
The feminist opposition group Pussy Riot became known in 2012 with a protest in a church against Putin; many of its members have been imprisoned in Russia.
aeh/Reuters