After serving more than two years of a seven-year sentence for putting up anti-war banners in a supermarket (ACAR post), Sasha Skochilenko , artists and musician from St. Petersburg, was released on 1 August in a prisoner swap between Russia and the West.
Source: The Art Newspaper
Amateur ballerina Ksenia Karelina, a dual American-Russian citizen, was arrested and detained by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on 28 January in her hometown of Yekaterinburg, where she was visiting family. After Russian authorities accessed Karelina’s phone and discovered that she had donated about $50 to Razom, a pro-Ukrainian charity, in 2022, the Sverdlovsk regional court sentenced her on 8 August to 12 years in prison for treason.
Her conviction came two weeks after Russia and the West carried out the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War, where 24 people were released.
Sources: CNN, The Guardian
On Monday, June 8th, a military court in Moscow convicted theater director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk of terrorism charges and sentenced them to six years each in prison. Authorities claimed their Golden Mask awarded play “Finist, the Brave Falcon” justifies terrorism, in Russia punishable by up to seven years in prison (see ACAR posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ). Both have already been in custody for over a year, awaiting trial.
Sources: The Moscow Times , Fox News, TV5 Monde,
Director and actress Soheila Golestani was imprisoned and banned from working in Iran for her public performance on the web about her refusal to wear a head covering in public (November 2022).
One year later, she was invited to the festival “Three Days to Liberation” by the Volksbühne Berlin for a preview screening of scenes from her film “There Were Three of Us” and her VR installation about flight and migration “If You Go Away”. Her visa application was rejected by the German embassy in Tehran and only approved two days after the end of the festival following an intervention by the German Foreign Office.
Sources: Volksbühne Berlin, Instagram, VOA
After several moments of absence, the Morality Police is back on the streets in Iran. Sunday, July 16 security forces attacked the home of the actor and woman rights defender Mohammad Sadeghi and arrested him because he posted a video expressing his anger over the detention of yet another woman in morality police hands due to her inappropriate hijab. Sadeghi shared his arresting live on Instagram.
The actor Mehdi Etemad Saeed was arrested by security forces on June 9, 2023, in Tehran and is still detained in legal ambiguity. He was reportedly denied access to legal representation and has been charged with “promoting impurity and indecency.” Etemad Saeed’s whereabouts are still unknown.
Sources: HRANA.org, Iran International, Twitter
Today, the Khamovniki Court of Moscow decided to extend the detention of Yevgenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk. The investigation petitioned the court to leave both defendants in a pre-trial detention center until September 10, 2023.
Source: Lawyers PRO people