Moscow’s Open Space community suspends activity due to police pressure

Moscow’s Open Space (or Otkrytoe Prostranstvo) activist community has been forced to suspend its activity after local police derailed an exhibition showing the artworks of political prisoners and searched the home of Darya Soboleva, one of the project’s volunteers. The organisation announced this decision on social media.

“We do not fully understand what they want from us and what will happen next, so Moscow’s Open Space is going on hiatus for a while. Open Space St. Petersburg will announce its plans separately,” a statement by the Moscow-based activist community reads.

On 14 June, police searched the Moscow office of Open Space following up on the complaint by the SERB pro-government group regarding the exhibition of political prisoners’ artworks dubbed “Autonomous Zone.” Police officers seized all the paintings, posters and documents from the office. Darya Soboleva, a volunteer with the project, and attorney Irina Putilova were taken to a police station for questioning. They were later released.

Soon after that, the police came to search Soboleva’s flat. The search was carried out in relation to a vandalism case regarding an unknown person. The search warrant states that there were items with anti-war slogans present at the exhibition organised by Open Space. The procedural status of the activist is unknown at the moment.

On the same day, police searched the office of Open Space in St. Petersburg.