Loud and clear

Holly Cartner, head of the human rights organization Human Rights Watch in Europe and Central Asia, said on Wednesday that Russian authorities should stop persecuting the director of the Sakharov Museum, Yuri Samodurov. “Russian authorities have used anti-extremist legislation to silence politicians. Now they are using it to suppress the voice of artists and to persecute a famous human rights activist,” Cartner said. “All countries must now say loud and clear that it is absolutely unacceptable to continue to ignore the obvious oppression and persecution of dissent. Who will be next?

The day before, the director of the Sakharov Museum and Center, Yuri Samodurov, was charged under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with inciting ethnic hatred. The reason for the criminal prosecution of the museum director was the exhibition “Forbidden Art 2006”. Samodurov called the charges brought against him a mixture of “fiction and nonsense” and refused to testify, taking advantage of the norms of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

The exhibition “Forbidden Art 2006” was conceived as a protest against censorship, which, according to the organizers, during the years of Putin’s rule reigned not only in the media, but in all spheres of art: cinema, literature, painting. The Orthodox-patriotic movement "People's Council", and after it law enforcement agencies, saw in the artists' works an insult to the feelings of believers. The radical Orthodox community has long-standing scores to settle with the Sakharov Museum—remember the litigation over the exhibition “Beware of Religion!” Even then, law enforcement agencies supported those who destroyed the exhibition - they found no guilt in their actions, but the organizers of the exhibition were considered guilty of inciting religious hatred.