A Russian artist and activist who was jailed for organising “Monstration” – an absurdist march to counteract the country’s official May Day celebrations in Russia’s third most populous city – has been released. Artyom Loskutov first held the absurdist march in 2004 and this year declined offers from city officials to parade along the riverbank, instead opting for the Siberian city’s centre.
At the press conference ahead of the rally, Loskutov said he was surprised at the enduring popularity of his rally that last year brought together an estimated 5,000 monstrators chanting nonsensical slogans and wearing bizarre brightly coloured costumes, but he said would keep organizing it as long as its popularity continues.
Loskutov was charged with leading a post-march gathering in front of the mayor’s office and was sentenced to ten days in prison and a fine of 5,000 rubles. He told Dozhd television station that he would be appealing these verdicts, all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary. He said that while serving his sentence, he had read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, about a prisoner’s day in the Soviet Gulag.
Amnesty International declared Loskutov a “Prisoner of Conscience” and a statement on Amnesty’s Russian branch website read “it’s clear that he has been punished merely for using the right to freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly”.
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