Activist who protested Russian prison violence will reportedly face felony charges for ‘inciting hatred’ against prison officials (UPDATE: CHARGES DROPPED)

Update: On October 30, Open Russia's Human Rights Project reported that the criminal case against Shalina has been dropped.

A Russian activist will face felony charges for staging a protest last week against Russia’s “repressive penitentiary system.” On October 25, Olga Shalina infiltrated a “security provision” convention in Moscow, where she scaled a police van prototype and scattered leaflets, before slashing open her left arm and bleeding profusely. Afterwards, she was taken to the hospital.

According to fellow activist Maria Alekhina (of Pussy Riot fame), Shalina will be discharged on October 29 and summoned for questioning a day later. She will apparently face criminal charges for inciting hatred against “penitentiary system employees,” which prosecutors say is a protected “social group.”

• A long-time member of Eduard Limonov’s “Other Russia” activist movement, Olga Shalina previously spent three years in jail, after evading the authorities for five years following an attack on Limonov at a Moscow courthouse in 2006 by armed members of two pro-Kremlin youth groups (Limonov’s crew was later blamed for the violence).