From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Russia: activist who replaced supermarket price tags with anti-war messages   
   jailed   
   16 Nov 2023, Amnesty International   
   Artist and musician Aleksandra Skochilenko sentenced to 7 years in prison   
   following sham trial under repressive article of criminal code   
      
   Skochilenko is second person in Russia to be prosecuted for price-tag activism    
      
   ‘Her persecution has become synonymous with the absurdly cruel oppression   
   faced by Russians openly opposing their country’s criminal war’ - Marie   
   Struthers   
      
   Responding to news that Russian anti-war activist Aleksandra Skochilenko has   
   been convicted of “disseminating knowingly false information about the   
   Russian armed forces” and sentenced to seven years in prison for replacing   
   price tags with anti-war    
   messages in a Saint Petersburg supermarket, Marie Struthers, Amnesty   
   International’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director, said:    
      
   “This manifestly unjust verdict concludes a case in which the only crimes   
   committed are those that have gone unpunished.    
      
   “One is against Aleksandra Skochilenko herself, who, having been arbitrarily   
   deprived of her freedom and held in torturous conditions for 19 months, now   
   faces the prospect of seven years in a penal colony. The other is Russian   
   aggression against the    
   people of Ukraine, which Aleksandra was simply trying to expose.    
      
   “Her persecution has become synonymous with the absurdly cruel oppression   
   faced by Russians openly opposing their country’s criminal war.    
      
   “The immediate and unconditional release of Aleksandra Skochilenko and all   
   activists jailed solely for engaging in peaceful anti-war dissent is   
   imperative.”     
      
   Artist and musician Aleksandra Skochilenko was charged under the   
   highly-repressive article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code for replacing   
   price tags with messages about war crimes committed by Russian troops in the   
   city of Mariupol in Ukraine. She was    
   taken into pretrial detention on 11 April 2022 and has remained in custody   
   ever since, where her health has deteriorated sharply. A sufferer of celiac   
   disease, she had no access to adequate food prescribed for health reasons and   
   was repeatedly denied    
   visits to doctors for at least two weeks following her arrest. During her   
   trial, the presiding judge denied her breaks for food and visits to the   
   toilet. Amnesty considers Skochilenko to be a prisoner of conscience.    
      
   Skochilenko is the second anti-war activist to face criminal charges for   
   replacing price tags with anti-war messages. In Oct 2022, after spending 6   
   months under house arrest, Vladimir Zavyalov from Smolensk in Central Russia   
   managed to flee the country    
   on the eve of a verdict in his trial for this “offence”. The prosecutor   
   asked the court to impose a six-year prison sentence.    
      
   Since the passing of Article 207.3, more than 750 people have faced criminal   
   charges in Russia, and their number is growing. The number of those punished   
   for the administrative “offence” of “discrediting the armed forces”   
   now stands at more than    
   8,000.    
      
   https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/russia-activist-who-re   
   laced-supermarket-price-tags-anti-war-messages-jailed   
      
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