Artist Sasha Skochilenko, accused of “fakes,” was placed in a temporary detention center to familiarize herself with the case

In St. Petersburg, the artist Sasha Skochilenko, accused of spreading “fake news” about the Russian army (clause “d”, part 2 of article 207.3 of the Criminal Code), was transferred to a temporary detention center to familiarize herself with the materials of the criminal case. They write about this in a telegram channel created in support of the girl.

The message says that Skochilenko will spend the next week in the temporary detention center of the Vasileostrovsky district. Previously, she was in pre-trial detention center-5. In a letter to her mother, the defendant said that in the detention center there is no special food for her: the girl has celiac disease - gluten intolerance.

“There is no reason that I could not be introduced to the case materials in pre-trial detention center-5,” she noted in the letter. The artist suggested that confinement is a form of pressure, since the temporary detention center does not have the necessary products for it.

The girl added that she and the defense did not have time to appeal the transfer decision: “He [the investigator] told us this on the eve of the weekend, and on Monday it’s already time.”

The investigator told Skochilenko’s relatives that information about the artist’s diet was transferred from the pre-trial detention center to the temporary detention center, and that he agreed with the head of the detention center about the possibility of sending her food not only on the designated days. Later, the head of the temporary detention center confirmed this agreement to the relatives by telephone.

The case against Skochilenko was opened in the spring; on April 13, she was sent into custody. According to investigators, the girl replaced price tags in the Perekrestok store with leaflets with information about the shelling of the Mariupol drama theater and the death of civilians. The investigator considers the disseminated information to be false, and the action itself to be committed based on political hostility. The activist admitted distributing the leaflets, but she does not consider herself guilty and denies that she disseminated false information.

Due to gluten intolerance, at first it was difficult for the girl to eat in the pre-trial detention center: the detention center staff refused to give the artist foods suitable for her illness. Because of this, the girl's health deteriorated .

Skochilenko was also bullied by her fellow inmates. In May, she was moved to a double cell with another roommate and provided with hot, gluten-free meals.

• Article 207.3 was included in the Criminal Code in March 2022. In this way, the authorities responded to anti-war protests and statements, as well as the dissemination of information about the war that did not come from official Russian sources. The maximum penalty under this article is 15 years in prison.
• The authorities are persecuting protesters against the invasion of Ukraine not only under the article on “fake news”. We talk about this in detail in our guide - there is currently information about 198 people being persecuted because of their anti-war stance.