On Sunday, March 19, police officers in Moscow disrupted the presentation of comics by the artist Sasha Skochilenko, who has been in jail for almost a year in the case of the so-called “fakes” about the army. This is reported by “Agency. Novosti” and “OVD-Info”.
The presentation took place in the Moscow “Open space”. Three comic books published by her support group after the artist’s arrest were presented: A Book on Depression, Notes on Depression and What is Mania. They are not directly related to the war in Ukraine, for which Skochilenko was detained for protesting. The participants, according to “Agency”, also did not talk about the war, but discussed the psychology and work of the artist.
According to the “Agency”, about an hour and a half after the start of the presentation, which was attended by about 30 people, police officers appeared in the “Open Space” and demanded that the audience leave the premises. On the broadcast, it was seen that two girls were forced by the police to lie face down. After that, the broadcast was turned off. It is not clear if anyone was detained.
Subsequently, the Sota publication reported that its correspondent Lilian Rubtsova was detained at the entrance to the premises. She managed to report that she was being “dragged inside”, after which communication with her was interrupted. In addition, a RusNews journalist was probably detained.
Skochilenko was detained in St. Petersburg on April 11 last year, and two days later she was taken into custody, she became one of the first sent to a pre-trial detention center under an article about the so-called “fakes”. The artist admitted that she spread information about the war, including replacing the price tags in the store with stickers with a story about the actions of the Russian military in Mariupol. She, however, denies that she deliberately spread false information. The Russian authorities consider as “fake” any reports about the war in Ukraine that do not correspond to the official statements of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
