Prosecution demands five-year term for Pavel Krisevich, tried for mock suicide in Red Square

Prosecutors are demanding a five-year prison sentence for Pavel Krisevich, the Russian performance artist who stands accused of ‘hooliganism’ in the Red Square. Pavel Chikov, the founder of Agora, a human-rights advocacy group, reported this on his Telegram channel.

Krisevich was arrested on June 11, 2021, following a political performance in which he shot into the air from a modified Makarov pistol firing blank cartridges, and then “shot himself” in the head, also with a blank. In this way, Krisevich expressed his protest against Russia’s suppression of free thought and, in his words, “eliminated his own fear.” His last words before the mock suicide were: “Shots will heard beside the Kremlin’s curtain!”

Krisevich stands accused under the Criminal Code’s Article 213, part 2 — “hooliganism involving the use of weapons, committed by a group of persons with prior agreement.” The article specifies penalties of up to a million-ruble fine and up to seven years in prison. Krisevich has already been in jail since June 13, 2021.

The 19-year-old journalist Nika Samusik, who filmed his 2021 performance, was at first another suspect in the case. After two days of detention, she obtained her release from the court, while Krisevich remained in jail.

• In November 2020, before his Red Square performance, Pavel Krisevich organized another protest in front of the FSB headquarters on Moscow’s Lubyanka Street.
• In that performance, his collaborators, dressed as apocalyptic FSB agents, crucified Krisevich and “burned him alive” on the cross, stoking the flames with “criminal cases” bound into volumes.
• Following that performance, Krisevich spent 15 days under arrest, and was expelled from the Russian University of People’s Friendship, where he’d previously studied economics.

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