The judge closed the trial of artist Sasha Skochilenko to the public due to loud applause

Judge Oksana Demyasheva of the Vasileostrovsky District Court of St. Petersburg postponed the next hearing in the case of military “fakes” against the artist Sasha Skochilenko, complaining that the audience “capped too much.” this reports Mediazona , citing its own correspondent in the courtroom. The meeting has been postponed to November 14, and listeners are prohibited from attending.

According to journalists, the audience at the hearing began to clap after the speech of lawyer Yana Nepovinnova, who said that Skochilenko’s case about price tags “a couple of years ago would have seemed outlandish.”

Demyasheva tried to shout down the applause in the hall with the words “We are not in the circus!” She then asked the bailiffs to remove anyone who was "clapping too much" from the courtroom. Lawyer Yuri Novolodsky and the listeners themselves tried to object, then Demyasheva herself left the hall, promising to return when the clapping people left the room.

As a result, the bailiffs persuaded six listeners to leave the hall. Demyasheva returned and, seeing that most of the audience was still in their seats, declared that she would not continue the process until everyone had left, and left the hall again. Returning a second time, Demyasheva rescheduled the meeting.

On November 8, the prosecution asked Skochilenko for eight years in prison. The reason for initiating a criminal case against her under the article on disseminating “fakes” about the Russian army (clause “d” of part 2 of article 207.3 of the Criminal Code) was the artist’s anti-war action in the Perekrestok supermarket. There, Skochilenko replaced the price tags with stickers with information about the number of people killed in the war in Ukraine and calls to stop the fighting. According to investigators, she acted to promote a negative assessment of the “special military operation.”

Since April 2022, Skochilenko has been in jail. As Mediazona notes, during this time she was repeatedly put under pressure. So, her cell is searched more often than others. She is also not given special food prescribed by doctors due to celiac disease. In addition, she was often transported to meetings for the whole day, which left her no time to eat.

In addition to celiac disease, Skochilenko was diagnosed with a cyst in the right ovary, PTSD and a heart defect. Despite this, a certificate from the pre-trial detention center was added to the case materials , which states that the defendant “can follow the stage.”

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