MOSCOW (AP) — A court in Russia’s Far East on Friday issued a rare acquittal to a feminist artist accused of spreading pornography after she shared artwork depicting female bodies online.
Charges against activist Yulia Tsvetkova, 29, in the Far Eastern town of Komsomolsk-on-Amur have sparked international outrage, with human rights groups linking her prosecution to the aggressive promotion by the Kremlin of “traditional family values”. Russia’s most prominent women’s rights groups have…
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MOSCOW (AP) — A court in Russia’s Far East on Friday issued a rare acquittal to a feminist artist accused of spreading pornography after she shared artwork depicting female bodies online.
Charges against activist Yulia Tsvetkova, 29, in the Far Eastern town of Komsomolsk-on-Amur have sparked international outrage, with human rights groups linking her prosecution to the aggressive promotion by the Kremlin of “traditional family values”. Russia’s most prominent women’s rights groups have faced repression in recent years.
During a 15-month trial that took place behind closed doors, the prosecution had requested a prison sentence of three years and two months for the dissemination of pornography. The charges are believed to be linked to Tsvetkova’s group on popular Russian social network VKontakte, where stylized drawings of vaginas have been posted. Tsvetkova is not allowed to disclose details of the criminal case against her.
The judge acquitted the artist on Friday.
“We are happy, but not completely,” Tsvetkova’s mother, Anna Khodyreva, wrote on Facebook after the decision was announced, adding that the prosecution still has 10 days to appeal the verdict.
An acquittal in a criminal case is a rare event in Russia. According to the Russian Investigative Committee, less than 1% of defendants in criminal cases were acquitted by the courts last year.
Tsvetkova’s trial began in April last year, eight months after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed constitutional amendments that ban same-sex marriage and instruct the government to “preserve traditional family values”.
Tsvetkova ran a children’s theater and was a strong advocate for feminism and LGBT rights. She founded an online group called Vagina Monologues which encouraged followers to challenge the stigma and taboos surrounding the female body, and posted other people’s art there.
She was arrested in November 2019 and spent the next four months under house arrest. His house was raided, along with his mother’s children’s education studio. The activist was fined twice for violating Russian law against spreading homosexual ‘propaganda’ to minors and declared a ‘foreign agent’ – a designation with strong pejorative connotations that involves additional government scrutiny and is intended to discredit the recipient.
Tsvetkova claimed her innocence. Khodyreva, her outspoken mother, told The Associated Press last year that “Yulia has always been against pornography. … Feminists are against pornography because it is the exploitation of women’s bodies.
The case against Tsvetkova took a heavy toll on her and her family. Khodyreva said that in addition to pressure from authorities, she and her daughter have received death threats and been repeatedly harassed by strangers. Khodyreva’s children’s education studio has lost many customers. Tsvetkova’s children’s theater Merak no longer exists – frequent visits by law enforcement were too much for the children, so it closed.
In a rare interview last month, a distraught Tsvetkova said “my life was completely destroyed.” “It’s not a metaphor, it’s reality,” she told the BBC.
Many public figures have spoken out in favor of Tsvetkova. Activists across Russia have protested his prosecution, artists have dedicated performances to him, and an online petition calling for the charges to be dropped has garnered more than 250,000 signatures.
The prominent Russian human rights group Memorial had declared Tsvetkova a political prisoner.
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