The state prosecutor demanded that the organizers of the exhibition “Beware of Religion!” be sentenced. to conclusion and destroy all evidence in the case

During the court hearing on March 2, the state prosecutor in the case of the organizers of the exhibition "Caution, religion!" Kira Gudim asked the court to sentence Yury Samodurov, director of the Sakharov Museum and Public Center, to three years in prison in a colony-settlement. According to the public prosecutor, museum employee Lyudmila Vasilovskaya and artist Anna Mikhalchuk should be sentenced to two years in prison, but A. Mikhalchuk K. Gudim asked to be released from serving the sentence due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

The state prosecutor asked all the accused to be found guilty of inciting

religious hatred (Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), since "the actions of the defendants were

insulting and provocative, and were also public. This is evidenced by the fact that the entrance to the exhibition was free and free, and also not limited by any qualification." The organizers, K. Gudim believes, "should

anticipate audience reactions.

According to Interfax , the prosecutor asked the court to destroy all evidence in the case and forbid the defendants to hold administrative positions.

The Yabloko party opposed the conviction. The party said in a statement that, as in the case of Yukos, it was about "selective application of the law": against the organizers of the exhibition and the artists. The criminal case was initiated precisely and only because the Sakharov Center was the venue for the exhibition."

"The YABLOKO party considers this process a political one and will seek its termination by all legal means," the statement says.

On March 11, prisoners of the Stalinist camps addressed the Prosecutor General V. Ustinov with an open letter . The letter reads, in part: “The case of Samodurov, even if he is sentenced on probation, is fraught with increased tension in the country, an increase in the radicalism of young people, and the transformation of Russia into a clerical state, like Iran, and is capable of causing a new wave of emigration of the most gifted youth, trying on the fate of the director of the Public Center named after Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov".

Sources

• The prosecutor demands to sentence the director of the museum to them. Sakharov to three years in prison // Interfax-religion. 2005. March 2.
• Statement by the Moscow branch of "Yabloko" regarding the trial of the organizers of the exhibition "Caution, Religion!" // There. March 4th.
• DOCUMENT: An open letter from the prisoners of the Stalinist camps to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation V.V. Ustinov in connection with the trial on the case of the exhibition "Caution, Religion!" // Portal to Credor. 2005. March 16.