MOSCOW (AP) – A feminist artist was tried in Russia on Monday on charges of spreading pornography after sharing artworks online with female bodies. Human rights groups linked her persecution to the Kremlin’s conservative stance promoting “traditional family values.”
The allegations against activist Yulia Tsvetkova, 27, in the Far East city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur have sparked international outrage. She is awaiting six years in prison on charges allegedly related to her group on the popular Russian social media network VKontakte, where stylized drawings of vaginas were posted. Tsvetkova is not allowed to disclose the details of the criminal case against her.
The hearing comes a year and a half after she was first detained and eight months after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and mandating the government to “preserve traditional family values.”
Tsvetkova’s lawyer, Irina Ruchko, told reporters after the hearing that she maintains her innocence and that the defense intends to prove it in court.
Tsvetkova ran a children’s theater and was an outspoken advocate for feminism and LGBT rights. She founded an online group called Vagina Monologues that encouraged followers to fight the stigma and taboos surrounding the female body, and put art from others in it.
Amnesty International last week called the case, which is being handled behind closed doors, “Kafkaesque absurdity” and urged the Russian authorities to drop all charges. It said that Tsvetkova only ‘expressed her opinion through art’.
Tsvetkova’s mother, Anna Khodyreva, echoed this feeling in an interview with The Associated Press.
“Julia has always been against pornography. … Feminists are against pornography because it is the exploitation of women’s bodies, ”she said.
Tsvetkova was detained in November 2019 and spent the next four months under house arrest. Her home was raided, along with her mother’s child rearing studio.
The activist was fined twice for violating Russia’s law against gay propaganda being spread to minors. The court sentenced Tsvetkova in December 2019 to pay a fine of 50,000 rubles ($ 780) for running an LGBT-themed online group, and 75,000 rubles ($ 1,060) in July 2020 for a draw in support of LGBT families. The second fine was later reduced to 50,000 rubles.
Many public figures have spoken out in support of her, including Russian state television veteran Vladimir Pozner. Activists across Russia have protested her prosecution, performers dedicated performances to her, and an online petition demanding the charges be dropped garnered more than 250,000 signatures.
An exhibition of Tsvetkova’s paintings was opened in St. Petersburg on Saturday.
“The snowball of the censorship started to bother the artistic community very much, and we understood that if we don’t stand up for Yulia, don’t support her, someone else could be next,” said artist Alexei Gorbushin, who participated in performances in support from Tsvetkova, said at the exhibition.
The European Union delegation to Russia tweeted the bloc “is closely following” the case against Tsvetkova and that “apparently her prosecution is linked to her public position as an LGBT activist.” The delegation called on the Russian authorities to stop the prosecution.
In addition to pressure from authorities over the past two years, Khodyreva says she and her daughter have received death threats and repeated harassment by strangers. Khodyreva’s children’s education studio has lost many customers. Tsvetkova’s children’s theater, Merak, no longer exists – frequent visits from law enforcement officers were too troubling for the children, so it was closed, Khodyreva said.
It’s scary. I am still looking at the door even now, ”Khodyreva told the AP. “The police have raided so often that … I’m not ready to get the kids involved in this chaos.”
Tsvetkova’s troubles began when the children’s theater was preparing for a play on gender stereotypes entitled “The Blues and the Pinks” in March 2019 at a theater festival she hosted.
The festival lost two locations it found, Khodyreva said, and police questioned children involved in the play about whether Tsvetkova, who directed it, had spoken to them about LGBT issues. The play had nothing to do with LGBT issues – the name refers to colors traditionally associated with boys and girls – but in the 1990s, ‘blue’ and ‘pink’ were popular slang for gay men and women in Russian.
According to Khodyreva, the police did not speak to the parents of the children, many of whom supported her and her daughter, and contacts with the police were traumatic for the young students of the theater.
“We saw how bad the children felt. We saw the boy who came up with the name for the play cry and think it was his fault, ”said Khodyreva, adding that another boy who feared he’d told the police about her daughter was crying.
Tsvetkova was repeatedly called for interrogations. In March 2019, the activist said she was being questioned about a series of her drawings entitled ‘A woman is not a doll’. The cartoonish images of naked or semi-clad women bore captions such as “Real women have hair on their bodies – and that’s normal,” “Real women have body fat – and that’s normal.” Police claimed the images were pornographic, Tsvetkova said in a VKontakte post.
Months later, she was detained and charged with distributing pornography.
The leading Russian human rights organization Memorial has declared Tsvetkova a political prisoner. The group said its persecution was linked to “ her civic engagement and feminist views which she did not hide and promoted by absolutely legal means as an activist and a contemporary artist ” and the story of defending the “ traditional values ” that the Kremlin holds in embraced an effort. to tighten his grip on strength.
Alexander Permyakov in Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Yekaterina Krylova in St. Petersburg contributed to this report.