St.Petersburg Times: "Юзаное зеркало ментовской Лады было инкрустировано брильянтами!"




Members of the art group responsible for drawing a giant penis on Liteiny Bridge in the summer and overturning several police cars in downtown St. Petersburg in September have been charged with criminal mischief.

The charges were issued Wednesday against the imprisoned members of the Voina (War) art group, famed for its daring, controversial artistic stunts, which generally have political or social content, while their lawyers appealed pretrial detention.

Artists Leonid Nikolayev and Oleg Vorotnikov, who reportedly took part in a stunt that involved overturning several police cars at night, have been charged with criminal mischief motivated by political, racial, national or religious hatred or hostility, or motivated by hatred or hostility toward a particular social group.

The offence is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Nikolayev and Vorotnikov were arrested at a Moscow apartment on Nov. 15 and brought to St. Petersburg the next day, where they have since been held in a pretrial detention center.

According to witnesses, the pair were handcuffed and had bags put over their heads when they were arrested. The police searched the apartment and confiscated computers, hard drives, USB flash drives, cell phones and any papers with information on them.

The police said that the damage inflicted on the police cars during the course of the stunt totaled 98,000 rubles ($3,146).

Nikolayev and Vorotnikov’s lawyers appealed the artists’ pretrial detention Tuesday, according to the web site Free Voina, which is campaigning for the release of the artists.

Both have refused to speak to investigators, referring to the Constitution, which guarantees the right of accused people not to give evidence against themselves, the site reported.

According to the web site, investigators have expressed their intention to re-arrest another Voina artist, Natalya Sokol, who was briefly detained on Nov. 15 but was released because she has a young son.

In emailed comments to The St. Petersburg Times, Voina’s spokesman Alexei Plutser-Sarno described the charges as “illegal.”

“The criminal case was filed for the artistic stunt ‘Palace Revolution,’ when the artists demanded, metaphorically, the reform of the Interior Ministry and an end to police arbitrariness,” he wrote.

“In response to this demand, the Interior Minister is insisting that prosecutors demand [five] years in prison. Effectively, the artists are charged with ideological hatred against the social group ‘corrupt authorities.’

“Previously, the Interior Ministry’s official representative was talking about 500 rubles ($16) of damage — one broken mirror and a flashing light. Now the cost of the used mirror of the police Lada has increased up to $3,000 and continues to grow. Apparently, the mirror was set with diamonds; it’s a pity that the artists didn’t notice that.”

Earlier this week, a campaign demanding the release of the imprisoned artists and raising funds for them was launched.

Founded in 2007, Voina’s most high-profile stunts have included having group sex in public, claiming it was in honor of the then Kremlin-backed presidential candidate Dmitry Medvedev in February 2008 and painting a 60-meter phallus on Liteiny Bridge next to the headquarters of the FSB in St. Petersburg in June this year.

By Sergey Chernov
Staff Writer
http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?story_id=33020&action_id=2



Сбор подписей в поддержку арт-группы Война идет здесь: http://patriofil.ru/publ/1-1-0-16

Хочешь помочь Войне - http://free-voina.org/help