An activist to be prosecuted for a garbage bag with an inscription in yellow and blue

Alexei Semyonov, an environmental activist from the Republic of Komi, will be prosecuted for a garbage bag left at a dispatch point of mobilized military units. The activist wrote “ZOO” in yellow and blue on it. Semyonov told the 7x7 media about this on March 29.

On September 24, 2022, Alexei Semyonov left a bag on the porch of the community center in the town of Izhma. The bag had an inscription in blue and yellow that read "ZOO." Two weeks later, 40 men, who had been mobilized, departed from the same place to Ukraine. Semyonov shared a photo of the event on his social media page, along with the caption "Izhma rehearsing the meeting of cargo 200" [“cargo 200” is the military identifier for transportation of dead bodies from the battlefield]. He also called for the mobilization to be sabotaged.

As a result, Semyonov was accused of repeatedly discrediting the army. He had already been fined in the past for a similar offense. In September 2022, Semyonov was detained by police for "non-payment of fines and public expression of anti-war stance." The court imposed an administrative arrest on him, which led him to go on a dry hunger strike in protest.

As OVD-Info reports, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, at least 505 individuals have been charged for anti-war speech. For instance, Alexei Moskalyov, a resident of Efremov, Tula Oblast, was sentenced to a two-year prison sentence.

In March 2023, Oleg Orlov, chairman of the Memorial Human Rights Center, was accused of discrediting the army. Prior to this, his colleagues had been searched.

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